Neuware • US • 2021 • Goner

Garage Rock / Garage Pop

12 Tracks.

On "Now Where Were We", the EXBATS hit the ground running like a dystopian garage rock version of the SHANGRI-LAS, or like a message to the future from the pre-VELVET UNDERGROUND doo-wop wannabe LOU REED. The album rings bright, like a beacon in the wilderness: eminently, effortlessly catchy, and loaded with buoyant choruses that rank alongside the best chart-toppers launched by the Brill Building or Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.

But, like CHARLIE MANSON lurking around a BEACH BOYS rehearsal, evil is at the door. This is 2021, after all, when headlines scream about pandemics, the perils of climate change, and a nation as politically divided as it was in 1865. The EXBATS shy away from none of this. "Hey New Zealand," a contemporary riff on the MAMAS & THE PAPA’S "California Dreamin’" filtered through the Zombies’ "Time of the Season," addresses looming ecological disaster. "I Don’t Wanna Feel Dead" and "One Foot in the Light" are steeped in the circumspect hope that, on our best days, epitomizes the vagaries of pandemic life. And the album’s opening track, "Coolsville USA," is a jangly yet sinister guitar-pop ode to the friendship that exists between SCOOBY DOO and SHAGGY ROGERS.

 Probehören auf 

Trackliste / Inhalt: