Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Those Howlings on Swear Jar Records


Those Howlings seem to to start with a 1950's reverb surf high sound explored in the 00's by the Vivian Girls who brought the Shangri-La's tambourine to their buried haze of distortion and then more recently Shannon and the Clams directly referenced a similar sound in Shannon's distinctive vocal and her DIY, punk approach. This Austin three piece have found the same compelling elements and swap vocalists and decades's on their latest.

A thin jangle opens A-Side's "Paid for you" with a doubled up dance beat in a nostalgic pop dance hop with an echo of a '50s prom starring Hunx & his Punx. Mostly it's Jolie's vocals that have that Spector girl group sparkly haze. The same school as Frankie Rose but breathy and floating over this slow strummed crunch from the electric stuck on every string the whole way down. It's an optimistic pop absorbing all the things about that '50s-'60s sound and then giving it back to the future. Weird glitchy solo slicing into the end of this, real electronic sounding guitar to make sure it ends with a contemporary slant.

"Dip in it" has male vocals this time and the jangle see saw rhythm is back mining the sock hop sounds and roughing them up in the garage. This gets dirty with a growly vocal and ramshackle guitars hitting some kind of piece of sheet metal for a snare which is a nice anti-bubblegum touch. They recognize they might be getting to sweet but still want to leave you wondering if these guys going to fuck up the house. Are we going to regret inviting them to the party? Otherwise a leather jacket inspired bluesy jangle with raw reverb vocals that sound like the '50s interpreted by aliens.

Get it from the bands own bandcamp page.

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