My indie-pop heart has fallen hard and fast for the cuties in Pants Yell!. Their music is cute and cuddly indie-pop that has a bit of a folky edge to it, but it's not really folky. If anything, they remind me of very early Aztec Camera and, occasionally, they kinda-sorta-but-not-really recall Belle and Sebastian. Their new record is called Recent Drama and it comes out next week via Asaurus and Paper Cities. Our good ol' pal Eric Wolf gushed over their previous album, Songs For Siblings, and I'm just now catching up, because this, their third album, is simply magnificent. The songs are all about love and falling out of love and being in love and all sorts of various love-related themes, and songs like "Our Weather" and "You Want Trouble" are gentle but not too weak; strong but not too macho. Come to think of it, these song titles all sound tough, talking about how they rule and how you don't rule and how you can't mess with them, but the songs really aren't. You can't help but relate to lead singer Andrew Churchman; he's indie-pop's everyman, if ever there was one. Better yet, Pants Yell! never tries to overextend itself musically or overstay their welcome; listening to these eleven songs will take only twenty-six minutes of your time, but they'll take more, because you'll definitely be hitting repeat, especially on "It's Been Done," my favorite song on the new record.. A great band that deserves not to be so damn obscure, and if Voxtrot can make it big, then there's plenty room for Pants Yell!.
Listen To: "It's Been Done"
1 comment:
Since you mentioned me and my review of their previous album in the posting here, I might add something.
The most noteworthy thing about this record is that they've stepped up the energy level. I have all their output, so I can say with certainty that this record beats all their other stuff in the upbeat department. In fact, album opener "Kids Are the Same" is pretty much the closest you can get to out-and-out rocking without a distortion pedal. In fact, they even put in a couple of audible feedback bursts at the end of the song. Besides that, the other, less rocking tracks on the album retain that same energetic feel. While they haven't changed their overall sound significantly, the energetic feel and the higher-fi recording quality make it seem like they've evolved by a leap and a bound since Songs For Siblings.
But as you might have been able to glean from Mister Joseph's comments, their sardonic approach to lyric writing hasn't changed one bit. And I'd be disappointed if it did.
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