-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Charly Bliss
ALBUM...: Guppy
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Bubblegum, Pop Punk
YEAR....: 2017
LABEL...: Barsuk
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 996 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 10
SIZE....: 210.42 MB
URL..: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charly_Bliss
- TRACKLIST
1 Percolator 2:46
2 Westermarck 3:12
3 Glitter 3:14
4 Black Hole 3:02
5 Scare U 2:25
6 Ruby 2:11
7 DQ 3:19
8 Gatorade 2:19
9 Totalizer 2:33
10 Julia 4:25
Total Playtime: 29:26
US Retail released under Barsuk Records - JP Retail released under P-Vine Records
has obi packaging and different record label info on the back cover.
*
There's a reason we form our closest affinities with rock and pop music
during our youth. There's something ineffably adolescent about our
connections to our favorite musical artists. We may grow out of certain
bands, genres, and even styles of art altogether, but the music we bond with
at a young age rarely becomes a burden. If anything, study after study has
shown the songs and records that we identify with as kids largely define our
tastes forever. Which is also why a lot of the best rock music captures the
indefinable quality of youthùit speaks to a part of us that is caught in the
perpetual trap of angst and ennui, the emotions that music, at its best, both
identifies and pushes us out of with an artistic zeal that lets us feel
freer, however briefly. And by any of these metrics, Guppy, the debut album
by Charly Bliss, is a nearly flawless exemplar of its kind, a record that
captures a certain sound, mood, and energy with the passion and exuberance of
a teen as-yet-uncrushed by life.
Put succinctly, Charly Bliss makes guitar pop-rock of the fuzzed-out kind
embodied by '90s acts like the Breeders, Weezer, and others of their ilk. But
rather than sounding like some Johnny-come-lately imitation, the band does
its musical forbears one better: It has crafted a record so engaging and
resonant, it feels more like a contemporary bedfellow of those acts than a
latter-day application of the same tactics. It's a joyous outburst of brash
and irascible energy, rising up with a wellspring of enthusiasm and a howl of
4/4 intensity that never forgets to be hooky or hummable. Whatever fizzy
elixir of chemistry the band distilled in order to produce these 10 tracks of
jangling chords and harmonies, it's a combination that succeeds where so many
others fail. It's simple without being base, and familiar without once
becoming derivative. Drummer Sam Hendricks meshes seamlessly with Dan Shure's
pulsing bass lines, a rhythm section that grounds all those shimmering guitar
riffs with the propulsive backbeats of arena-ready acts 10 times their
seniors. And guitarist Spencer Fox has long had a knack for the unassuming
guitar lines that complement, rather than take over or attempt to outdo, the
music. Even when guitar solos threaten to take center stage, he wisely keeps
the focus on the melody, sacrificing flash for songcraft.
But the lodestone in Charly Bliss' scruffy pop edifice is singer Eva
Hendricks. An infectiously effervescent frontperson with the energy of a
punk-rock cheerleader and the biting lyricism to match, her vocals have the
rough sandpaper edge of a Kim Deal fused to the freight-train shout-alongs of
a Kathleen Hanna, bringing the best of both elements to the forefront. When
things threaten to turn saccharine, she belts out appealing screams with the
best of them, adding the necessary roughness to sweet musical hooks and savvy
softer squeals to the harder melodies. But it's her words that create the
atmosphere of forever-young passion and searching that permeate Guppy, making
both rueful confessions and declarations of emotional war sound as relatable
as breathing. When she describes the bad decisions that come from late nights
with someone you shouldn't have stuck around with, it's both universal and
perfectly individuated. "Don't you know I aim to please? I'm everybody's
favorite tease, put your hand on my knee, that's what friends are for," she
sings on album opener "Percolator," capturing the too-intimate-by-half mood
of every impulsive hookup in history, as well as her own badass declaration
of purpose. "My conscience is fucked, and my judgment is leaking": This is
the sound of American youth, forever one step forward, three steps back, and
another one sideways and tripping head-first into an amp for good measure.
From there, it only gets better. "Glitter" nails the suspicion that comes
with being someone's ostensible object of lust, only to realize it might be
more fleeting than that ("Am I the best / Or just the first person to say
yes?"), while "DQ" evokes the sense of fatalistic frustration we all confront
at times, the fear that nothing good will ever come of our hopes and plans.
Even album closer "Julia," the only song to slow things down and take a
breather, eventually builds to a screaming coda of distortion and feedback,
the only appropriate end to a record that so vitally documents the churning
miasma of emotional wanderlust that characterizes the best rock albums. And
maybe that's what is so essential about Guppy: It's the sound of rock music
doing the timeless job it only achieves from its best practitioners. It's
wholly adrift and disposable by any metric of serious analysis, but those
very qualities are why it is absolutely necessary. It speaks to the uncertain
core of each of us, doling out the screams and hollers of inner upheaval the
rest of us lack the artistry to express in such passionate and expressive
ways. Charly Bliss has made a record as alive and irrepressible as anything
I've heard in years. Goddamn, but this is a record for the agesùI can only
imagine where they go from here.
*
Guppy is a special release, proving that all you need is 30 minutes of hooks
and riffs sung by a voice familiar the first time you hear it.
There's are two moments on Lana Del Rey's new collaboration with the Weeknd,
"Lust for Life", in which both, individually, paraphrase the closing line of
William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus": "We're the captains of our own
souls." They take "souls" and stretch the word, taking a rollercoaster-esque
approach to singing, slowly reaching higher notes before a precipitous drop
on the last syllable. Few artists can tap into such adrenaline-inducing
melodies with meaningful lyrics to match, and over a full-length album, it's
even rarer. New York power pop band Charly Bliss have had their debut
full-length Guppy in the works for years now, but now that it's out, the
aforementioned qualities are plastered all over the ten songs, inscribing
hooks into your brain while inspiring jubilant dancing. In short, it's the
most fun album released thus far in 2017, ultimately legitimizing the
multiple exclamations marks some lines in the lyrics booklet got and then
some.
This year has been positively bountiful for bouncy pop-rock with motion --
just see Diet Cig's debut and White Reaper's latest as two examples -- and
Guppy doesn't let up on the trend. However, while the similarities with these
bands and noted touchstones like Weezer are apparent in their frenetic
honesty and undeniable riffs, the band that I keep returning to, listen upon
listen (and there have been many such listens already) is the Strokes.
Specifically, the Strokes circa-Is This It?, when they were a small
discography band with intense hype that managed to make good on it and then
some, crafting the defining rock album for a generation of New Yorkers. It's
too early to proclaim Guppy as that distinctive of a release, but for the
younger half of millennials, there has yet to be an album that so perfectly
captures our experience like the Strokes did their demographic nearly two
decades ago.
Case in point, a Census report was released on April 19 that noted the
difficulties in millennials' transitioning into stable adulthood. An NBC News
article about the report interviewed a 21-year-old"'stuck' working as a
manager at a fast-food restaurant". On Guppy, a punishment doled out to
frontwoman Eva Hendricks for some love-induced cruelty is "end[ing] up
working at Dairy Queen". The prospect itself as a long-term job is itself not
appealing, but the way that Hendricks delivers that final line of the hook,
you can hear her resigned sigh. Her early interest in musical theatre can be
found in these voice inflections all over the album, molding her sonic grin
into the emotional rainbow.
And yet for as good as it sounds -- and it sounds as perfectly imperfect as
the best indie-adjacent releases are supposed to, thanks to the steady hand
of drummer Sam Hendricks (Eva's older brother), the addictive riffs of
guitarist Spencer Fox, and the tying-the-room-together undercurrent of bass
from Dan Shure, not to mention the engineering and mixing work done by Kyle
Johnson -- the lyrics are just as much of a draw. Eva Hendricks has that rare
quality of knowing what her voice is in both the written and spoken forms,
and this marriage usually only is forged through decades of experience. Just
look at how she opens the album: "C'mon baby, get me high / There's always
something new to buy / I cry all the time / I think that it's cool / I'm in
touch with my feelings / I have always loved the door / But I will always
love you more / I love metaphors / Swimming in your pool, I am pregnant with
meaning." The arrogant malaise of Julian Casablancas is transformed into
just-the-right-amount-of-earnestness, and the effect is just as flooring.
Each of the ten songs contains extensive quotables like the one above, made
even better by the churning instruments under Hendricks. "Am I the best? / Or
just the first person to say 'Yes'?" is a gut-punch of a couplet in and of
itself, but given the recent Tinder data suggesting a trend towards looking
for love, it's the type of sentiment young people entering the milestone
phase of their life know all too well. "Julia" closes the album with an
ambiguity similar to the way Sufjan Stevens opened The Age of Adz, and
"Sad-sack, smell of weed / Now I only see you when I need to fall asleep"
creates a middle that needs no explanation.
Guppy is a special release. It has powers: the power to transport you back to
some of your most formative experiences, but also the power to let you know
that you're nowhere near done having them yet. That the best happened, and
the best is yet to come. That being alive is confusing and irritating, and
sometimes it's better to be alone except for when it's all-too-clear that
being together is as beautiful as life gets; that there is a meaning of life
and you're going to find it. That all you need is thirty minutes of hooks and
riffs sung by a voice familiar the first time you hear it. That exactly what
you need is 30 minutes of hooks and riffs sung by a voice familiar the first
time you hear it.
*
You'd be hard-pressed to find a descriptor in the contemporary rock landscape
more loaded than "bubblegum." Blame it on rockism, indie orthodoxy, or
garden-variety grumpiness, but bands who season their craft with the sugary
sounds of Top 40 will face skepticism regarding their staying power, and by
extension, their musical credibility. This narrative, it should be noted, is
frequently and ironically perpetuated by today's bubblegum faithful: namely,
their tendency to frame the work of contemporary power pop bands in terms of
decades-old teen comedies, a low-key backhanded compliment.
Charly Bliss are wholly aware of these risks. Hell, their old merch setup
featured a gumball machine filled with stickers and pins. But they couldn't
care less, probably because these relative rookies are sitting pretty at the
top of the New York concert circuit. The quartet's tight live show seamlessly
blends high-fructose hooks with high-octane grunge, presided over by
frontwoman Eva Hendricks: a spunky firebrand who zips around the stage like a
Tasmanian Devil in Docs, pausing every so often to introduce her demons ("Who
here struggles with crippling anxiety?", she chirped at a show earlier this
year). The bandleader's emotional bluntness is the band's greatest asset,
with her distinct squeal (think Courtney Love, after ingesting half a
canister of helium) coming in at a close second. Sharpened properly, a sweet
tooth can be a most formidable weapon.
Charly Bliss successfully translate their viral onstage energy to record on
their debut album Guppy, providing definitive, if ephemerally stated, proof
that there's a lot more to bubblegum than easy cheer and Weezer worship,
although there's certainly plenty of that as well. The 10-track, 30-minute
effort was originally conceived as a grungy set, produced by Justin
Pizzoferrato (Speedy Ortiz, Dinosaur Jr.), but the band would go on to scrap
that version and start again ù this time with an uptick in immediacy.
Considering Hendricks' brief tenure writing jingles, it's no surprise that
her hooks cling to the ears like flypaper: "Glitter" swims with warm
harmonies, followed by a white-hot solo from guitarist (and erstwhile The
Incredibles star) Spencer Fox; the chuggy "Totalizer" climbs, plummets, and
coasts like a roller coaster engineered by Kurt Cobain and operated by a
chain-smoking cartoon character.
Speaking of characters, as far as 2017 releases are concerned, there isn't a
snappier, more introspective heroine than Hendricks on Guppy. "Show, don't
tell" doesn't cut it for her when it comes to detailing her personal
experiences with mental illness, heartbreak, and 20-something ennui, all dire
narratives which stand in stark contrast to the sunny sonic proceedings.
Instead, she shouts out her therapist ("Ruby") and her ex's new girlfriend
("Julia"), laughs at a love interest who's mourning his dead dog ("DQ"), and
laments over depression-induced inorgasmia ("Glitter"). Sure, lyrics like "I
bounced so high, I peed the trampoline/ I'm too sad to be mean" certainly
qualify as over-sharing, but that's the point. Guppy lures you in with
fine-crafted honey, before blindsiding you with a sudden downpour of vinegar
(or piss, take your pick). This is why they call it "power pop."
*
Brooklyn-based quartet Charly Bliss ù with Eva Hendricks on vocals and
guitar, brother Sam Hendricks on drums, Dan Shure on bass and Spencer Fox on
guitar ù recorded their debut record Guppy with a couple things in mind: they
felt out of step with the Brooklyn scene, and they loved pop music.
They've combined that into something truly unique here: Guppy is a hyper,
loveable, endearing, gritty, catchy romp through early 20s confusion, love,
lust, travel and therapy (seriously: "Ruby" is an ode to Eva's therapist).
It's like an updated, somehow catchier Dookie, scratching that existential
itch of young adulthood with stigma-free honesty, gritty guitar and reckless,
hyper-pop sensibilities that tie it all together.
Opener "Percolator," which dropped in March as the record's second single, is
a punchy, streamlined introduction; sparks fly from the first single-coil
riff, before the whole band slams in for an early, authoritative climax, only
leaning back when Eva's delightful, commanding voice cuts in. "Come on baby,
get me high!" she belts, as though from the backseat of a top-down,
cherry-red convertible careening down the highway. It's a blissful,
action-packed thesis statement.
The album is a clever exercise in repositioning of boring genre rules: sugary
melodies set to grungy, fuzzy walls of guitar; pop structuring married with
Eva's unabashed lyricism. Where you expect Charly Bliss to zig, they zag, in
all the right ways. The chorus of "Black Hole" could've been a conventional
affair, but a subtle shift in chord transition keeps things interesting.
Elsewhere, the plucky, Cars-style power-pop sheen of "Glitter" is woven with
Eva's unfiltered authenticity: "I can't cum and I can't lie / I can't stop
making myself cry / I'll have my cake and eat it, too!"
The later tracks up the ante sonically: the band's jammy grunge tendencies
(the members all cite Weezer as a touchstone) are indulged on the lumbering
"Gatorade," with Fox's clever, understated leads stealing the melodic
spotlight from Eva. "Totalizer" doubles down on the theatrics, riding along
at a pop-punk hum before descending into a huge, head-banging meltdown.
That spits us out into "Julia," the record's apocalyptic closer. It takes the
previous two tracks' hints at total grunge-rock abandon and extrapolates
them, wasting no time with pleasantries. It's a slow stomp, with Fox's guitar
and Eva's vocals taking swings at each other over Shure's and Sam's
monolithic bottom end. It's a chaotic, unpolished final word, a declaration
of territory; the fading feedback and ambient clatter seem to mutter over
their shoulder, "We'll be back."
That Charly Bliss don't prescribe to nor care about conventions is their
identifying feature, but it also makes Guppy a little hard to place; this is
a non-gripe, really, but it's worth noting that it's sometimes hard to suss
out what Charly Bliss want to be. They make ultra-catchy power-pop songs one
minute, and a grimy foray into desert rock the next. Bands should be free to
dip in and out as they please, but the lane-changes do make for the
occasional cognitive inconsistency. Even if that's the desired goal, it's
still jarring.
Good art is supposed to push the thresholds of comfort, though; it's not
supposed to be an easy ride. That's not an absolute rule, but then again, if
there were absolute rules, we might not have Guppy, in all its radical, naked
emotion.
*
The New York band breathes life into the poppier side of '90s indie rock, and
their debut is both wry and sincere in its expression of the endless crap
conveyor belt that is life and love as a girl.
Featured Tracks:
Charly Bliss make no secret they're a throwback. They hone in on an era from
about 20 years ago, when seemingly every other band came blissed out,
drenched in sun, and outfitted for a spot on the 10 Things I Hate About You
or Jawbreaker soundtrack next to Veruca Salt. Back then, for every Breeders
there were at least two Letters to Cleos or Stretch Princesses, and their
legacy is now constrained doubly: condemned the first time around by a
rockist critical establishment for being too poppy, then when everyone
started being OK with pop again, dismissed with the same received
condemnation. Thing is, this style never went away, it's just tended to age
down.
In the mid-'00s it retreated to teen popùone of Charly Bliss frontwoman Eva
Hendricks' admitted biggest influences is the Adam Schlesinger/Kay Hanley
power-pop vehicle that was Josie and the Pussycats soundtrackùand Warped
Tour-adjacent pop-punk like Paramore and Fall Out Boy. It bubbles up
periodically in the poppier singles from acts like Honeyblood and Swearin',
but the most mainstream outlet is, of all places, children's shows. Which is
all well and glossy for the kids, but it's refreshing to hear a revival led
by Charly Bliss made for adults.
Charly Bliss took three years from 2014's EP Soft Serve to full-length debut
Guppy, largely due to grappling with this context. The original incarnation
of Guppy was a garage-rock set produced by Justin Pizzoferrato (Parquet
Courts, Speedy Ortiz), but the whole thing got scrapped on grounds of grunge.
"We've learned a lot from looking to bands that are more poppy," Hendricks
told The Fader, and the new record pulls no punches and sacrifices no hooks.
Half the tracks run about three minutes or less. "Percolator" is a fake-out:
the first couple seconds of Strokes guitars give way to an ebullient,
literally cheering single. In case the hook of "Black Hole" weren't enough,
we get it again with a key change, and "Westermarck" and "Glitter" take to
their choruses like flowers to the sun.
This all sounds simple, but it's not. Executed poorly, an entire album of
this might induce sugar shock. Or, like too many modern acts indebted to '90s
indie-pop, it might emulate the style rather than the substance, using
nostalgia like a flashy suit to compensate for a lack of anything to say. But
these hooks are delivery mechanisms for often acerbic, often exhausted lyrics
about the endless crap conveyor belt that is life and love as a girl.
Charly Bliss gets this; there's a bluntness to Hendricks' lyrics reminiscent
of The Pink Album-era Tuscadero or, at their bitterest, the quick-cut unease
of early Throwing Muses. It'd be easy for a track called "DQ" to stop at its
titular referenceùit's ice cream! So kitschy! Instead, it kills off a puppy
in the first lineù"I laughed when your dog died/It is cruel but it's
true/...Does he love me most now that his dog is toast?"ùand when Dairy Queen
finally shows up, it's not quirky but rather the final dead end in Charly
Bliss' teenage wasteland. "Westermarck" (per its title, referencing the
Westermarck effect) tosses in kissing cousins by the second line. It's not
all shock value, though. "Ruby" is an earnest, lyrically stark thank-you note
to a therapist, the languid "Julia" a mash note to a friend (or more; it's
ambiguous). The glossiest part of "Glitter" is, crucially, the bleakest: "Am
I the best? Or just the first person to say yes?" It's an old songwriting
trick, but it always works.
Then on the standout "Percolator," Hendricks takes all the shit she's given
("Eva, you're being too nice, everyone is going to think you're flirting with
them," she said in an interview with Bandcamp) as well as all the cudgels
critics took to female-fronted bands and prods at them with exhausted
sarcasm: "Swimming in your pool, I am pregnant with meaning/Could I be more
appealing? Writing slurs on the ceiling?" It's like a deeply mocking recap of
a mid-'90s music video, but it's simultaneously the most earnest track. "I
cry all the time/I think that it's cool/I'm in touch with my feelings" is
ironic, but it's the kidding-not-kidding irony that increasingly defines the
decade. It works on multiple levels: as tossed-off sarcasm, as a statement of
pride, and, crucially, as an undeniable pop song. It's a deceptively hard
balance to strike, but Charly Bliss does it effortlessly.
*
Charly Bliss are a very unique-sounding power pop act and honestly, an
acquired taste. Vocalist Eva Hendricks will either lure you in or turn you
off with her high-pitched voice (which a friend likened to Laura Stevenson on
hard auto-tune). Be that as it may, Hendricks' voice works for me, because it
conveys a wide range of emotions, not just lyrically, but in terms of tone --
all amid a flock of poppy melodies and catchy riffs. Guppy as a debut does
have room for growth but it's a distinct statement that matches the highs
that Hendricks hits and the ambitions of a band whose cult following surely
expanded this year.
Influential bands like Weezer and even indie peers like Tancred pop to mind,
especially with the synth bombs dropping here and there to sound off
something you can tell wasn't made in a big-time studio. In terms of this
rough indie sound, take in "Westermarck", "Ruby" and even the slower
"Gatorade". I love how Charly Bliss, as with these songs, manage to flow
through various tempos and rhythms so effortlessly, pumping brakes most of
the time to keep things at a head-nodding, foot-tapping tempo, but still
doing enough to jag you with its cute pace.
Then you've got "DQ" which feels like a tempered-down Paramore track that
should have been out when MTV played music videos and truth be told, speeds
things up with a mainstream flair. In fact, this track more or less signals
why Charly Bliss won't stay underground for long. A little more anger and
roughing up is needed for their musical style, but undoubtedly, one of
Brooklyn's best-kept secrets is out now with Guppy swimming among the masses.
*
Intended or not, indie rock quartet Charly Bliss built some anticipation in
the lead-up to their first album. It follows a pair of EPs and a string of
high-profile live shows opening for acts such as Sleater-Kinny, Tokyo Police
Club, and even Veruca Salt, a musical antecedent. The record also follows
some scrapped efforts in the studio while the group struggled to find the
right balance of their shambolic rock style and tendency toward bright pop
hooks. They finally decided the two could co-exist and settled into a gritty
power pop for their full-length debut, Guppy. Whatever work they did on
perfecting -- or unleashing -- their sound, they found a distinctive one,
despite its patent roots in the '90s alt-rock of bands like Weezer and the
aforementioned Veruca Salt. That's thanks in large part to lead singer Eva
Hendricks, who sports a particularly chirpy, youthful voice that both
contrasts and perfectly suits her gruffer accompaniment. While her delivery
is highly melodic, bordering on theatrical at times, Hendricks lets loose on
the infectious opening track "Percolator," even screaming over churning
guitars and crashing cymbals. Most of the album follows that example, with
driving hook after hook, though tempos and distortion do vary. Along with
candid lyrics mostly concerned with objects of affection, being on the
outside, feeling vulnerable, and looking for connections ("I don't want to
scare you/I don't want to share you"), songs called "DQ" and "Gatorade" keep
things decidedly unpretentious. In fact, Guppy may be just the ticket for
those looking for a reprieve from the ubiquitous gloss of electro-pop, and
they can have it without sacrificing catchiness or sunny vibrations.
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
** Thanks ***
*** BCC FNT IPC SSR ***
*** For Knowing Where The Music Is At ***
*** Props to CaHeSo, awesome Asian Indie/Shoegaze ***
*** And to FANG/HOUND for supporting all the Indie lovers out there ***
--===--
*********************
* NuHS we miss you! *
*********************