Indie pop album of the year alert. It’s love at first listen. It’s scratchy, catchy and lovable. It’s like hearing the early Cardigans, Best Coast or Liz Phair for the first time and instantly puts a smile on your face and love in your heart.
Slippers mastermind Madeline BB’s new record is a masterpiece. Like if you painted the Beatles with a rattle can and wax pencil. Powerhouse of pop, this Karen Carpenter incarnate is fresh off Slippers last record entitled Do You Like Slippers? More aptly it should have been “Do You Like Pop Music?” Because if the answer is no to either then what are we even doing here? If you aren’t humming this after two listens are you even alive?
Chancers return with another clutch of their mythical house-show rock and roll. Big enough to please 500 people on a great PA but best served through blasted speakers and a compromised liver, this skirts some great corners of the guitar landscape upon which some train carrying Meat Puppets and Guided by Voices records collided at full speed while Gun Outfit play in a nearby adobe hut. You could even call it vintage Americana since what Chancers do is what you always want American rock and roll to do. A dreamy nostalgia for nostalgia where music so rough around the edges that you have to squint to make it out can still be made of the best ingredients available. Will McAndrew once again oozes confidence, upon which he seems to be convincing us he’s taken a chance.
The Woulds are a rock band from mid-1989.