You know, powerpop bands are the backbone of underground music, and I won't hear any backtalk on the subject. Sure, it's easier and requires fewer text and email threads to coordinate the downloading of a pirated version of Ableton and start messing around with crunchy bits of Simpson's dialog to see if you can squeeze a tune out of a pitching up daisy-chain of 'D'oh!'s, but it's unlikely to have the same swelling charge (or be as fun to perform with your friends) as a song you wrote from scratch and then hammered out on guitar with enough distortion to provoke a noise complaint three blocks over. The swiftest and shortest jump from a deviant thought that plagues the mind, like a worm embedded in the frontal lobes of a floundering presidential hopeful, to a pop song with strong-arming hooking is still the route that transmogrified Declan Patrick MacManus into a household Costello. Speaking of folks converting angst to audacious audibles, have you heard of Kill Gosling? The Ohio group's third EP, Waster, is something like a $10k pearl nestled in the belly of a neon-dyed fanny pack- loud, bright, boastful, and you can take it anywhere, and it will still be worth its weight in gold! On their latest release, the group takes a little nibble out of every notable powerpop permutation and juices it through the pipes of 5th wave emo and DIY to produce a durably chewy union of Blue Album-esque melodic tendencies and gritty, catchy churn-ups and consciously contained chaos a la Rozwell Kids (or some such similar Arrogant Sons of Bitches and/or the singular form of the same). A lot of what the group seems to focus on with this record (lyrically at least) is processing trauma and hardship, however, there is a romantic optimism to their performances that delivers an earnest and mighty upswing to their overall tilt and tenor that plausibly casts their sound as the equivalent of a Gilman Street band who could slay at a prom. If you haven't checked out Waster yet, then you're just squandering a good time.
You're not wasting your time, so long as you're trying (We're Trying Records).
