Flyte :: "Over and Out"

There is an implied irony when your band name is Flyte and your first proper single is called "Over and Out". True to form, the Police and Talking Heads cribbing band fills "Over and Out" with flight imagery, a syncopated strum pattern chirping from the background. It's a breezy and satisfying summer single, the chorus sailing upwards on the back of silky harmony and the unfolding-ribbon-of-good-times aesthetic that denies the very existence of melancholy. The melody echos Maxine Nightengale's "Right Back Where We Started From" but this signifer - the disco tradition - is almost entirely hidden behind a satisfying series of New Wave footnotes. "Over and Out" represents a promising debut from this four-piece, a band bent on discussing elevation, both theirs and yours.

Teen Mom :: "I Wanna Go Out"

Teen Mom's "I Wanna Go Out" drops messily in medias res, like a rehearsal the listener stumbled into, the bass, drums and guitar eventually finding a synchronicity. Of course, this is a useful descriptor for a band who's instrumentation resembles so firmly the Police, and maybe more accurately the arrangement tension in "So Lonely". Teen Mom, a Washington, D.C. act, however, draws much more on an independent, college radio aesthetic than Sting's wanton talent for writing radio singles. The chorus, a shabby and fuzzy winner, is also the title lyric, a falsetto lilt from singer, Chris Kelly. The conclusion churns as a crashing final act. The rolling snare leaving little doubt this is sonically darker than the lyrically morose Police sound it draws so self-consciously from.