No-nonsense girl-fronted shoegaze-informed rock with gobs of hard guitar and adorable Juliana Hatfield-esque vocals (well, in between sounding uncomfortably like Katy Perry). Bostonians, obvs. The papers would call these cats “edgy”, but only for the New Wave borrowings and pseudo-Goth image. Not gonna lie, it’s on the mainstream side, it sounds like it could fill a stadium, it’s begging for attention from the Fall Out Boy crowd, and it’s like to annoy a good lot of you. Connect the dots to the likes of Lush, Metric, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

try: 1, 3, 7
no FCCs

*1. ~3 sec to start. fast, fun, rollicky driving guitar rock. gets a little confused in the bridge, but oh well. solid, solid stuff.
2. starts with the MGM growl. ominous verrry 80s minor electric intro. a pop goth rocker.
*3. ba ha. ~10 sec of heartbeat, then ~10 sec of a “ring in return” bell-style phone before a doubled angular guitar line that sounds really, really... proggy. even the “whoa-oh” chorus channels “blood red summer”. i really hope this track was an intentional nod to C&C. otherwise i’m... not really sure what to say. it’s fast and hard and great, play the shit out of it.
4. kicks off with “whoa”s and “ooh”s. poppy, upbeat arena rock anthem. powerful vocals.
5. on the groovy/poppy/ocean...side. meandering verses. anthemic, enveloping chorus. apparently the “hit”, but i’m not feeling it. a grower, perhaps. fade out.
6. starts with hard rain / music box effects. kinda painfully out-of-tune vocal intro. cliched lyrics and mismatched chords. actually, the entire track is bad. don’t play it.
*7. slow start. subdued power 80s electric riff. perfect balance of rudder guitar and very pretty, very strong vocals. degenerates into spoken word in the last minute, but, eh.
8. oppositional guitar, sweet vocals. sort of weak chord progression, all told.
9. starts with static & doppler alarm. more straight-ahead shoegaze. the first verse could pass for ride. nice interlocking riffs in the underlay. loud, hard, complex.