
Take the MYELIN SHEATHS for instance. This Canadian pack of raw yet melodic robo-power punk sound like they might individually be creeping up on 19 years of age, and this song “Everything is Contagious” from their forthcoming album just totally explodes in a gooey mess all over your headphones. Love it, and that album’s going to be a must-buy when it hits the digital shelves in a couple weeks (no, I didn’t say the album was completely buried yet). Atlanta’s BARRERACUDAS are similarly fantastic, but are frolicking in a totally different slice of the pie. Their tarted-up Johnny Thunders guitar screamer “New York Honeys” is right out of the UK glam/NY Dolls playbook, except it’s from this past year and it’s kind of hilarious, as a lot of the strutting, preening hard-glam stuff is. I like it when the singer warns us to “Look Out” before the song’s even three seconds in. Now that’s confidence.
READING RAINBOW are from Philly, as I understand it, and this track “Wasting Time” is a wonder of chugging, harmonic convergence. Boys and girls holding hands and singing their lungs out under a sparse, garagy blanket of sound. Finally, the veterans and most well-known of this bunch are THEE OH SEES from San Francisco. Noise for noise’s sake is a huge pet peeve as my ear canals become more sensitive and as my BS detector continues to sharpen, but these guys & gal leaven any tendencies they have toward needless free-form freakouts with an absurd sense of 60s pop melody. This is a sha-la-la song of the highest order, and I command you to take note of it.
That’s it – see you on the other side of the weekend.
Play MYELIN SHEATHS – “Everything is Contagious”
Download MYELIN SHEATHS – “Everything is Contagious”
Play THE BARRERACUDAS – “New York Honeys”
Download THE BARRERACUDAS – “New York Honeys”
Play READING RAINBOW – “Wasting Time”
Download READING RAINBOW – “Wasting Time”
Play THEE OH SEES – “I Was Denied”
Download THEE OH SEES – “I Was Denied”