Little Realities: Flat Mary Road’s Power Pop Breakthrough
Flat Mary Road break through with Little Realities and deliver jangly, hook-laden power-pop with a touch of Harry Chapin thrown in for good measure.
power pop
Charlie Kaplan’s ‘Country Life in America’ Is Delightful, Breezy Power Pop
The sophistication of Charlie Kaplan’s gorgeous LP is impressive and a reminder that sometimes the simplest, sincere gestures are the warmest and longest-lasting.
Teenage Fanclub on Life, Death, and Remaining Seated
The simple joys of writing songs and sharing them remain the driving forces for indie pop veterans Teenage Fanclub. Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley discuss.
Garage Popsters Bark Get ‘Loud’
Mississippi husband-and-wife duo Bark offer up power pop filtered through a hazy lens of distortion on Loud, their most fully realized work yet.
Man on Man Rock Out with Gay Love on ‘Provincetown’
Man on Man excel at delivering pop hooks in various ways across rock genres, and with ten tracks at 42 minutes, there’s plenty of playful joy on Provincetown.
Ramones and Devo: Sonic Reduction as Resistance
Ramones’ Ramones uses reduction as a means to end, to bring rock back to its roots, whereas Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? uses reduction as the end itself to mirror society’s decline.
The Lemon Twigs’ ‘Everything Harmony’ Wades Deep Into the Mid-1970s
On Everything Harmony the Lemon Twigs echo and even improve on their 1970s influences with such skill and spirit that they demand we take them seriously.
The New Pornographers Tone Down the Hooks on ‘Continue as a Guest’
Continue As a Guest is a more delicate and less hooky version of the New Pornographers, the most reflective they’ve been since 2007’s underrated Challengers.
Revisiting Jellyfish’s Pop Masterpiece ‘Spilt Milk’ 30 Years On
Spilt Milk is one of the great accomplishments of pop history: a colossus that bestrides pop music and crushed Jellyfish, the band that made it.
We Are Scientists Add 1980s Synths to Their Power Pop on ‘Lobes’
We Are Scientists’ Lobes is notable for building its songs specifically around keyboard lines and exploration of 1980s-style synth tones.
Bird Streets’ ‘Lagoon’ Delivers Melancholic Pop Pleasure
The aesthetic sensibility of Bird Street’s Lagoon is the urbane, soundtrack-ready, slightly melancholic popcraft ushered into the world by Club Largo.
Jonn Penney on Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s Pulse-Pounding Mad-sterpiece at 30
It’s difficult to describe the adrenal-gland rush Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s Are You Normal? still provides 30 years later – like a WWII fighter strafing helpless civilians below.