Mourning Routine – Theme Parks
Cool, detached rock n’ roll is alive and well. The Strokes’ influence has never really died down, and their debut continues to get discovered by new and new generations. This also has the nice effect of letting folks in on the secret of the Strokes’ influences, the New York guitar bands.
It’s big city music, inspired by places crowded with people, stomping on each other’s feet and getting involved in each other’s lives willingly or not. This is also music that seems young, confident, and out to prove itself, just like a fresh-faced kid hitting the streets of one of these metropolises.
Mourning Routine’s Theme Parks seems to possess that kind of swagger. That’s to be expected. The single resembles the sound of groups like the Strokes, the Drums, or Beach Fossils. It’s simple, braggadocious, yet melancholy-filled. It’s guitar music that gets by on charm and diligent self-reflection. Keep an ear out for that hook.
Love Crumbs – Ellipses
People have a hard time understanding a culture if it’s not their own. The sense of belonging, the ties that are created after years and years, the legacies built by great artists or athletes are things that no amount of PR and marketing can buy.
Everything gets traded, especially nowadays. The great folk-rock artists of old have sold their back catalogs, and only time will tell what their new owners plan to do with them. Surely, some of them are going to end up in the most unexpected places. A Stevie Nicks song selling sneakers? A Paul Simon song hyping you up to buy insurance? It’s all part of your future, and the new owners will find it hard to understand why anyone would mind.
The members of Love Crumbs sound like the kind of people that would be bothered. Their sound, after all, is built on the legacy of the great folk-rock stars of old. There is no way of divorcing their music from the past. And, this is important.
Ellipses is a song that feels like it could have been written at any time during the last decades. Its themes of loneliness and inability to connect on a profound level with others will ring true in any era. Big pop hooks, good playing, and vocals that resemble Stevie Nicks at her most radio-friendly help to announce this strong single.