Though Bear Driver describe their music as "surfer slacker pop" and this isn't necessarily untrue, it says nothing of how hard it is to craft warm guitars and a slow-drive pop arrangement like "Never Never". What will remind American audiences of Real Estate and other hazed out slow-punk bands, the opening movements are only loosely connected. The chorus, a rising and falling slice of inexorability, like breathing, rings out before returning to those same, signature guitars. Again, Bear Driver might like you to believe they aren't trying, but it simply can't be true.
Sometimes you need useless comparisons. It's a start, after all, naming those things; you, a pattern recognizing machine built for solid navigation. Beyond the savageries of its alliteration, Coastal Cities' stunning new single, "Think Tank", a precocious and explosive offering, will feel both very new and achingly familiar. The easiest footnotes are early Bloc Party, but somehow more juvenile and charming, and a less electric Two Door Cinema Club (circa the time when they had no drummer and used an iPod). "Think Tank" finds its energy in repetition ("I like you but I really don't love you") and a final movement that kicks at the 2:03-mark and recalls the most soaring moments of the grand tradition of poppy, post-punk. There are elements of The Drums, but somehow a less annoying version, mixed with the youthful embolisms of teenagers who don't care a lick about the proper nouns in this paragraph, the comparisons wholly irrelevant if unmistakeable. This is the cost of comparison, the robbery of emotional aesthetics at the hands of critical analysis. So when someone leans close and says, "Don't these guitars remind you of the mathematical arpeggios of Foals?", you can clearly and confidently say no.
Taking a page out of the Free Energy playbook in the eponymous naming of their debut single, Norwegian outfit Young Dreamslift their sonic influences from Vampire Weekend's glittering world pop and tribalism that makes the second half of Lord Huron's songs so satisfying. A recent signee to Modular People, the band just Friday released their first free promotional single. This goes a long way to say something simple: "Young Dreams", initially built on a lonely guitar line, eventually opens wide like an updated Rhythm of the Saints, centering on the lyric, "We'll live forever". The architecture is warm and dusty, synth loops pulse and drums pound and the guitar ascension rings joyful. The final act coheres all these influences, revealing a panting and brilliant conclusion which - and these are their ideas - we'll assume is immortal.
Dare Dukes has a stutter step, a near waltz on latest single, "Meet You At The Bus". In the spirit of lush indie pop, Dukes crafts a song built on interstitial tensions, a lonely horn and a plodding banjo, tweaking vocals hiding a strangely infectious hook. The final estimation is a proclamation of escape velocity, the title lyric and then quickly thereafter the best one, "Let's be reckless just the two of us." The first listen yields none of the pleasure of repeated forays down into Dukes' curious melody, halting though it may be, a complete thesis statement for anyone headed up, down and out of town.
Swedish pop outfit Det Vackra Livet offer a new and entirely stunning, Swedish-language single, "Juni Berattar", proof that command of the language is only a side-benefit. With the cursory translation of a Swedish-speaking colleague, the title means something like "Thoughful June", the rest of the lyrics are a complete mystery to most of the American audience, though there is a moment in the chorus where it seems like a transliteration of the f-word is about to happen. The sonic quality is something between the Shout Out Louds and the Cure (which this writer well understands is like parsing the difference between the peanut and peanut butter), a collection of wistful and heart-sick longings usually confined to John Hughes movies and imported Smiths' singles. But here, Det Vackra Livet, create a beautiful slice of pop that manages to hide - and maybe this is the language barrier - its saddest moments in pastel guitars and soaring synths. Perfect for the moments when you can't or won't grasp what terrible, solipsism is afoot and angled at your door.
When Morrissey wrote "Girlfriend In A Coma" in early 1987, it was a loose metaphor for the thin line between love and hate. I suspect he never thought three girls from Texas would reappropriate the idea, ditch the relationship angle and make themselves, metaphorically of course, that Girl In A Coma that Morrissey and Marr were so seriously considering strangling. On "Smart" the girls don't sound like the Smiths but they do sound like the Sundays. Stopping short of the pure pop of "Here's Where The Story Ends", a song like "Smart" relies on brightly textured guitars and soaring arpeggios, all backing wistful lyrics like "I've never been in love like this". If Morrissey stared at a comatose lover and thought of how easy it would be to kill her, Girl In A Coma diverge, wondering how crushing it would feel to be alone.
Making the best nerdy power-pop since the Lemonheads, Jonathan Coulton has courted and built an impressive and loyal following. On, "Sucker Punch" just the most recent peek at his latest LP, Artificial Heart, a down-stroke progression builds to one of those pre-choruses that foretell something elevating. In this case, it is Coulton, nearing a key change and at the top of his range, belting, "And I feel better already", over and over again. It isn't particularly academic and the refrain is self-aware enough to know that there will be more critically acclaimed records than this in 2011, but, perhaps none will have the soul and the unbridled fun of "Sucker Punch". This is a slice of destructive adolescence from a grown man. It is also a bit of power-pop from someone who knows better and certainly doesn't care.
