The following's just a bunch of newer shit I've been pretty excited about lately, but am too FGSHSGASGAJDGAJDA right now to really cover in much detail. I think people like truncated snippets of untrustworthy opinion, though, so that's great.
(also, more "sleeping on couches homeless" than "crack rock steady homeless" this time)
One of the vocalists has a dramatic alterna-bombast voice and the other sounds kinda like the dude from Charlie Brown Gets A Valentine fused with the guy from Barenaked Ladies. But hey! The catch is that this somehow isn't like being forced to eat a diaper at gunpoint. Instead, it's a surprisingly adventurous spin on the standard pop-punk modus operandi/limited musicianship. I mean, lyrically there's the standard themes of ennui, nostalgia, drinking, growing pains, etc. (sometimes delivered in a particularly cringe inducing tactlessness), but across the board on the band's debut LP from 2011, Idle Ages, is a lot of attention to detail, mid-song riff/arrangement reinvention, and other "hey! listen to that!" shit I love finding in pop-punk bands. It's kinda like turning over a bunch of rocks like you're looking for salamanders but they're pop-punk bands and maybe under them you'll find riffs and songwriting styles that haven't overpopulated an area and destroyed the ecosystem.
I was about to be all, like, "I can't think of aaaannnnyyy other band that sounds like these guys" but then I realized they actually sound like a more technical, interesting, Midtown with shittier vocals. I don't think that's the best recommendation ever but hey, maybe they'll break up and form an hilariously douchey dance pop band. YEAH!
But really, go look up the songs "Seventeen" and "Architecture" on youtube 'cause blogger won't let me embed them for some reason. Or that grotesque triple music video for "Architecture", "With Honours", and "Living In The Future Of Feelings". Also "honours" because Canada.
If I had a pound of body weight for every time I unsuccessfully attempted to get into The Measure [SA], I would be a horrifying, partially formed skeleton monstrosity with a thin layer of flesh colored latex stretched over it. Or maybe I have brittle, hollow bird bones.
But, like, it'd be a big number of chances. Just not... necessarily enough to substantiate a grown man's body.
I don't know, fuck you.
At this point I'm pretty sure it was the guy vocalist's sloppy, raspy bullshit (Historical Fiction), the cheese filling ("How To Steal A Million" = #1 danish), and the general songwriting inconsistency that curbed their appeal for me, but fuck did it take a while to throw in that towel. Oh, and the occasional scoop of cutesy, Plan-It-X-y bullshit. If you're wondering why the theme of "flogging shit I don't like endlessly and then writing about it" has become a recurring element here, well, I dunno as far as writing about it goes, but it usually has to do with the pedigree of the band members or something dumb like really liking Lauren's husky vocals, all coarse and wizened from channeling the cry of the downtrodden & disenfranchised. I wanna hang out with her in our matching self titled-era American Steel t-shirts and read bell hooks and Bakunin in a fair trade organic cafe/bookstore and unpack the word "consent".
...
Apparently The Measure [SA] broke up/completed their mission on Earth sometime in 2011, following shortly after, Lauren started up Worriers with a rotating cast of musicians I have no idea about. I think Mikey Erg is involved now, though? If so, that's pretty radcakes, but it doesn't really sound like his drumming on the song above. Either way, the band sounds great and I'm genuinely excited that they're about to drop an LP on the almost untouchable Don Giovanni Records.
TAKE A LOOK.
Dig the cover art way hxc as well as the P.S. Eliot vibe I get from the first half of the song. I know, I have to drag P.S. Eliot into everything, but it's definitely a compliment. On top of that, the song is great and DOES sound like Mikey Erg's involved, this time. Can't wait to hear the full length.
