Girlpool – “Powerplant”

The first 50 seconds of Girlpool’s new album, Powerplant, sound exactly like I expect them to. Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker’s whispery voices interlock over soft guitar parts that are similar to their debut effort, Before the World Was Big, which wowed me back in 2015 with its minimalist style that found great power in simplicity. But then something surprising happens in the second part of “123:” a drummer comes in, there’s a loud, soaring chorus and Girlpool evolve in mid-song like a freshly leveled-up Pokemon. Similar to a level 36 Charizard, they’ve grown bigger, stronger, and even learned some new moves.

The decision to add percussion and expand the band’s sound runs an obvious risk: that, by embracing more conventional instrumentation and songcraft, Girlpool will lose what made Before the World Was Big so unique and become just another indie rock band. Tividad and Tucker are keenly aware of this, and much of Powerplant intentionally teeters on the edge of that cliff, only to be brought back to stability by surprising moments that subvert the indie rock form.

The third track, “Corner Store,” has one of those moments. It starts out as a jaunty indie pop song, erupts in a cacophony of noise out of nowhere, then abruptly switches back to the band’s usual sound as if nothing happened. It’s the most obvious example of one of the themes I got out of Before the World Was Big, which is Tucker and Tividad as these vulnerable young voices who are confronting the darkness of the real world in their music. This is emphasized even more on Powerplant, which contrasts their harmonies with noisy guitars and uses quiet/loud dynamics that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Pixies or Nirvana album.

Powerplant ends on two if its strongest tracks: “It Gets More Blue” and “Static Somewhere” both use the quiet/loud concept to full effect with big sing-along choruses and are the culmination of the band’s evolution from Juno soundtrack minimalists into full-blown rock stars. What’s really remarkable is that they pull off this transformation while losing none of what made Before the World Was Big feel so special. The harmonies of the two singers make the band still feel intimate, even when surrounded by much more noise than before.

After one listen to Powerplant, the fear of Girlpool becoming “just another band” was out the window. If anything, embracing the traditional rock style has further illuminated their strengths. There is now an even more subversive element to the band’s music as they play off indie rock tropes, and the use of dynamics helps highlight the unique presence of Tividad and Tucker. Their vulnerability, chemistry and songwriting ability ensure that everything Girlpool does will be original.

Slowdive is Too Pretty

No band has benefited more from jumping on the trendy reunion train than Slowdive. The shoegaze group, which had been inactive since the mid-90s — when they were basically run out of town by their record label and the music press — has returned to a larger audience than ever while being recast as a festival headliner. And as one of the “original” shoegaze bands (along with the also-reunited My Bloody Valentine and Ride), they’re being credited with innovating a genre that continues to influence a massive amount of current music.

This portrayal of Slowdive is odd, because I never felt like they were a particularly innovative or important band. Their most famous album, Souvlaki, came out well after MBV defined the genre with Loveless, and the band hadn’t even formed when Isn’t Anything was released. Their main innovation to the genre was removing a lot of the rough edges and tension that make MBV such a unique band and instead making music that was smooth and pretty, but much less compelling. I partially blame them for this current strand of indie music like The xx that is very concerned with being “spacious” and “chill,” to the point that the people making it sound disinterested in their own music.

Slowdive’s self-titled reunion album cements their legacy as a slightly above-average shoegaze band. It sounds very pretty and meticulously arranged, but that is part of the problem. My favorite part of shoegaze is how it can sound chaotic and beautiful at the same time when really loud guitars collide with the breathy vocals and melodies. While the genre’s name implied a passiveness on behalf of the performers, bands like MBV have a confrontational element to their music — they’re testing the audience with massive sheets of noise to see if they can find the melodies buried underneath.

Part of why I’m not so enamored with this Slowdive album is that it lives down to the derisive nickname of the genre. It’s very passive music that ends up settling in the background rather than engaging the listener. I’m not going to sit here and act like it’s terrible — the members of this band are very experienced and know how to make music in this style, and I like “Star Roving” and a couple of other songs. I’m just struggling to really care about it or feel like I need to listen to a new Slowdive album in 2017. It’s too quiet and one-note, without the tensions and contrasts that I like to hear in this style of music.

I’ll admit that I might be biased against this album, because I’m so averse to this trend of manufactured nostalgia where everyone gets hyped for some middle-tier 90s band that already had a full career arc. I don’t get this excitement for Slowdive when they have three albums and some EPs that you can listen to at any time, then formed Mojave 3 and released more albums that barely anyone cares about. I wish some of this excitement was reserved for newer bands, or even bands that were around in the 90s and have continued making music instead of breaking up then reuniting.

As for this “shoegaze revival” created by the original bands reuniting, I think it’s a misnomer. Anyone who actually listens to and likes this genre knows that it’s been alive and well for years as tons of bands have added their own spin on the formula and continued pushing it forward. While MBV’s reunion album showed that they’re still the masters of this genre, Slowdive blends in with all the other revivalists and feels unremarkable.

Sneaks – “It’s a Myth”

This far into the history of pop music, there are few true originals. Instead, it’s really about finding the right influences and trying to make what has already been done feel new again. On her second album, It’s a Myth, Sneaks (AKA Eva Moolchan) accomplishes that as well as anyone I’ve heard this year. Her sound is indebted to minimalist post-punk groups like ESG and Young Marble Giants, but she has infused it with a modern hip-hop sensibility that makes it feel fresh.

Like her 80s inspirations, Moolchan keeps things simple on this album. She’s backed by just a drum machine, bass and occasional synthesizer and her delivery is a deadpan that is somewhere in the middle of singing and spoken word. At times, It’s a Myth feels inspired by slam poetry, but thankfully it dodges that art form’s common pitfall of being really corny due to her skill as a lyricist. While a lot of this spoken word poetry/punk music wants to hit you over the head with its themes, Moolchan is more interested in the sound and rhythm of the words and the interplay with the music. It’s an abstract approach that reminds me a bit of Sue Tompkins from Life Without Buildings.

It’s a Myth accomplishes something increasingly rare: it actually sounds cool. So many bands desperately try to sound cool (the uncoolest thing there is), but Moolchan just is. She has a casual confidence that makes the entire album feel smooth, and her charisma makes it consistently entertaining. It’s aided by her skill in editing her songs, which rarely cross the two-minute mark, with the whole album breezing by in just 18 minutes. It’s a Myth has the brevity and attitude of great punk music while also feeling effortless, unpretentious and fun.