"Lying around in bed / Something tiptoes inside my head / It's the state I'm in / Saturday, 10:27am..."
The emo dashed and post punk / post grunge underscored "You & A Melody" by Altadena California based indie outfit God Tamers, led by ex-Actionslacks singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Tim Scanlin, is a smile inducing ditty that becomes wonderfully big in an 90's alt rock sort of way. There is a cool vibey comfortability to this track and the way Scanlin mines an era that, in our collective head, felt subversive but in a lot of ways (to my way of thinking) was really not any more subversive than the 4 decades of rock / pop / indie rock that came before it, at least in retrospect. The way "You & A Melody" is constructed and executed does feel nostalgic, maybe even familiar but when push comes to shove, I can't pinpoint a direct artistic connection. Instead within this engaging 'ditty' I thought of a pretty wide array of songs (mostly in the 90's but not all) that feel sort of artistically adjacent.
I mean I thought of the kind of post grunge poppiness of Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy" and amiable emo breadth of Spacehog's "Almond Kisses". At the same time feel the kind of jammy absurdist indie rock swank of Spoon's "Inside Out" (the outlier at 2014) and the busker punk of Cracker's "Low" and even, for some unknown reason "Abattoir Blues" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds pokes at my brain which is really so bizarre. It is of course, wildly different in every way, more texturally dark, more narratively heavy than "You & A Melody" but like a faint ghost it came to mind as well. It is funny actually but not totally surprising. I don't know, maybe it is a prescient feeling about Scanlin while not knowing anything about him other than this song. Maybe it is a guess that the God Tamers EP, out now, might have some ying yang or otherwise psychic connection.
I dunno. I, afterall, am winging this writing thing in the same way I do everything and as such push past the normal boundaries of what is thought of as a 'music review'.
"Don't wanna see
The world bleed
All I need is you and a melody
When I open up my eyes
And I'm suddenly
So totally
Overjoyed to take my liberty
This time time is on our side
And I wanna be
Completely
Here with you and melody
Shut the world outside
And I might be
A little off-key
But all I need is you and a melody
When I open up my eyes"
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/godtamers
https://www.godtamers.la/
God Tamers is a band from Altadena, California led by ex-Actionslacks singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Tim Scanlin. Their self-titled debut EP was released in May, 2025 on their own Astonishing Lawns imprint.
God Tamers is a band from Altadena, California led by ex-Actionslacks singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Tim Scanlin. Their self-titled debut EP was released in May, 2025 on their own Astonishing Lawns imprint.
God Tamers, self titled EP, indie rock, alt rock, lo-fi, post punk, post grunge, emo, 90's indie, college radio, "You & A Melody" (Official Video), band / artist, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Tim Scanlin,
No comments:
Post a Comment