Tatxers Tatxers LP
In the last warm days of summer, I love listening to a record like this. There is a shimmering sadness, like dappled light on a body of water while the sun goes down and you didn’t think you’d need a sweater. These songs have a yearning core to them, melody and longing being the driving themes perfectly suited to the clean guitar tones that drive home lovely, mopey pop songs. With the stabbing guitar of the stunning second track “Labanak,” I realize it might well have just been called “Pamplona Calling.” There are even traces of what we used to call “college rock” in songs like “Iruñea,” with a staccato jangliness I’m always thirsting for. Song to song, though, this isn’t a band retreading old ground, but rather bringing a bright vitality to melodic punk rock with an old-school cool. I feel like there are plenty of bands right now that bring out this feeling of nostalgia for an era that never really existed. Or nostalgia for the now? TATXERS is exactly the kind of band I reach for to rebuke someone telling me they “stopped listening to rock music” a long time ago. The good times are still here (musically anyway), and they’re fleeting as always and full of joy and sadness, just like good rock music should be. A tender little record I’ll be spinning for a long time.