Listen: Truth Club - "It's Time"

With the collapse of the time-space continuum that was the covid-19 pandemic, it's hard to imagine it's been almost 4 years since the release of Raleigh quartet Truth Club's debut album Not An Exit. Since discovering them at my first ever Hopscotch Music Festival back in 2017, a highlight of each return trip was the chance to see Truth Club since heretofore they hadn't really been a touring band. And yet, despite the fact that up until 2019, I'd have one or two performances a year to tide me over, there songs remained so distinctly memorable that I never really lost any enthusiasm for them. Going on tour with Wednesday last year, the band unveiled a series of new song clearly prepped for a follow up to their 2019 debut. "It's Time" is one such song and it's a scorcher - building a solid base of driving drums and angular guitars before Travis Harrington's vocals enter. 

One of Truth Club's many strengths is the interconnectedness of its members and the song spends a good portion of time setting that up before. While lyricism in Truth Club's songs are always at the forefront and certain phrases end up being incredibly memorable - I've personally found them both obfuscated and illuminating. It's an interesting dichotomy. Harrington's lyrically very open and yet, plays with cadence and vocabulary in a way that has you second guessing.

 "I watch this one last busy week crestfall and dissolve the intentions you set and I will watch it happen again" is a lyric that shouldn't have nearly enough interpretations as it could and yet, it reveals a surprising amount of information for an opening lyrics. Essentially describing detached inaction that Harrington elevates to a gripping level of drama. "It's Time" is a descent - or more accurately, an re-enactment of a descent - as Harrington details shifting feelings that gradually metamorphose into something seismic. "When alone I'm afraid I will never find a way to pry joy from strain, joy is strain, joy is strange" Harrington announces at the song's climax. It's a major pronouncement - the feeling when you're at a low point that you can't see the way back up. Thankfully, the song ends on a somewhat hopeful if not productive note: to just keep working at it.Truth Club lyrics have a tendency to be self-referential - either to their NC environs or the member themselves (see: "Not An Exit"/"Tethering") and Harrington does so here - "It's a show of faith, always running, but in Yve's groove, she moves, she dreams up new ways to exhaust herself", Harrington delivers amidst a wash of dissonance with a sort of optimistic uncertainty.

 

Truth Club's newest single "It's Time" is out now. 

Listen: Foyer Red - "Etc"

 

Whenever people ask me how I come across new music, my answer is usually a completely sincere "by paying attention". Since the days of MySpace, I realized that paying attention to what bands/artists you've already established you like are doing is a pretty revealing way to find music that, while it might not be that similar, usually scratches a similar itch that band's scratched. In the case of Brooklyn's Foyer Red, it was just a matter of realizing multi-instrumentalist Mitch Myers (whose work I had been familiar with since Hear Hums/Peace Arrow) had started another project. Foyer Red, a collaboration of Myers, Elana Riordan, and Marco Ocampo before ultimately adding Kristina Moore and Eric Jaso continues Myers' loud and proud tradition of creating music that's somewhat atypical. Foyer Red's debut EP Zigzag Wombat featured eclectic instrumentation (omnichord, clarinet), interesting production, and diverse influences.

"Etc", their first single as members of the Carpark Records roster, continues the band's style of intricately woven experimental pop. Beginning with a lilting kalimba intro that gets taken up by the bass, the vocals follows a similar pattern of being passed between members as Riordan's are underscored by Moore's harmonic response before ultimately giving way to Myers' own introduction. 

A big part of Foyer Red's appeal lies in its juxtaposition of composition - complex, interweaving rhythms and melodies don't get in the way of the songs themselves being pretty damn catchy and downright memorable. The songs don't come across as being complicated for the sake of being complicated but the layering gives them an interesting texture that uplifts everything as a whole.

"Etc.", as it passes its spotlight from one member to another - Riordan's lighter vocals given room to describe, while Myers' more grounded vocals get more layers built around it. It's an apt songwriting choice - as Riordan offers more nature inclined lyrics and Myers' counters first with lyrics about concrete parking lots and car races and then electronic recalling ones.

PRO TEENS - Dentistry (2022)

 

In August 2020, Arizona rockers PRO TEENS called it quits. In their break-up announcement the band stressed the split was amicable but that they felt the band had run its course and while they had planned to release one more record, ultimately there would be no more new music. And then November of last year, the band uploaded an album pretty much without ceremony or explanation. "WE MADE AN ALBUM FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE AND IT'S THE BEST ONE YET" the band announced.

Dentistry, the band's posthumous release, might unsurprisingly be the best PRO TEENS album. One of the qualities that appealed to me most about PRO TEENS was their ability to exist in contrast. A sound that is equal parts retro and charmingly current, laid back and filled with blustering agita, Dentistry is a calmer follow up to their previously released Twos. Beginning with the aptly titled "(To The Tune Of An Electric) Toothbrush", which builds off the buzzing of an electric toothbrush before metamorphosing into a jangly pop rock jaunt, Dentistry is a veritable masterclass in guitar tone. Both front-person Andy Phipps' vocals and the band's guitars are incredibly versatile - offering a very dynamic sound that's an obvious peak for the band. Songs like "Mavs in 6" effortlessly switch to whole new sections without skipping a beat.

Album standout "Ode To Curse" shifts between lilting chamber pop and a barrelling rock scorcher. Dentistry feels the most narratively dense of all of PRO TEENS' oeuvre and "Ode To Curse" feels like a definitive songwriting flex for Phipps. Similarity to "Do Right Bayou" Phipps has an ability to sing about seemingly abstract concepts that suddenly coalesce into these moments of being known or yearning to be. "Overwrought with final thoughts, it's hard, sometimes we just need to fall apart but I can't help holding on" Phipps sings ahead of one of the track's big tempo shifts, plodding drums, glancing guitar strums, and an earthy bass clarinet underscore the moment. "Ode To Curse" is filled with these absolute gems of songwriting and composition eventually becoming an high speed locomotive as Phipps croons the song title over and over until everything comes to an exasperated fever pitch.

"Do Right Bayou" meanwhile is a slow burner, as Phipps realizes some wants and desires have no real grasp in reality. In a lot of ways Dentistry wrestles with twenty-something ennui but also realizes the role community/or anything external can have in defining the self. "Well I get caught up in what could've been, I'll spend a whole lifetime absolving sin, there's so many choices, what do you choose, if I could do one right I'd do right by you" Phipps concludes. In a song where Phipps ponders all the ways big and small that they could be different, in which their dreams align with actual reality, the main takeaway is that all that is ultimately needed is someone else.

A fan of PRO TEENS since fellow Arizona band AlhhlA recommended them to me around the release of their album Philistines, I am glad not only that PRO TEENS get to put a tidy bow on their time together but also that their final effort is such a perfect encapsulation of what makes them so worthwhile. If Dentistry truly is their final album, it sees PRO TEENS going out on an absolute high. Even more special because it's a record that wasn't supposed to even happen. Even if you've never heard PRO TEENS before, Dentistry is more than a nostalgia trip, it's a brilliant album in its own right.