“Lonely Stone” is a short and sweet track of garage rock, heavily tilting towards the pop end. The barely distorted guitars and vocal harmonies give the song a glam feel. The novel format and the band’s curated image make this a fun work of living nostalgia.
Five songs on cassette, previously released as singles by Seattle, WA’s APPALOOSA. Femme-led pop punk with a strong backbone of garage rock. Shamble-y guitars tear into solos, light vocals turn sassy and harsh, occasional keys provide texture, while bass and drums keep a pretty steady rock’n’roll groove. The earliest contribution to this release, the RATS cover “Thoughts By Now” (from 2020), is my favorite, with contrasted clear-as-a-bell vocals against lo-fi and super rough-sounding guitars; that said, the polish on “Western Glow” shows a nice maturing of their sound. I get the vibe of the COURETTES with rougher edges. Hope we have an LP to look forward to!
The APPALOOSA side is a surfy number with conversational vocal delivery and a modern power pop ballad in the style of HAYLEY AND THE CRUSHERS, with some elements of the GO-GO’S as well. I think fans of modern garage rock with a melodic pop sensibility are the target audience here. It may come off as a bit tame for those who prefer the raw, punk-adjacent side of the power pop coin.
Full transparency here, my buddy Ben McIsaac plays drums for this band. But I was assigned this review, not solicited. This means I have carte blanche to trash it, but I couldn’t possibly find anything bad to say about it. The first track is called “No Hope for the Kids,” which immediately makes me think of the Danish post-punk band from the mid-2000s who came up with acts like MASSHYSTERI and GORILLA ANGREB. However, they sound nothing like those bands. Instead we get this sugary-sweet power pop with beautiful melodies. Having two guitars really takes them to the next level. They’ve got these rad riffs with weird time signatures, all the while the rhythm guitar holds the harmonies just underneath rich and breathy vocals. They remind me a lot of another Seattle band called GAZEBOS. Their songs are soft and sweet, but pack a helluva punch.
