
sequela – Zavander
If you go by teen dramas, being in a band while you’re still a kid is your one-way ticket to fame, fortune, or at least a kind of giddy happiness. Strap on a guitar, get in front of people, and the world will suddenly open up to you. Right?
That’s not entirely false, sure. But what about all the world that don’t want the world to present them with any more surprises? What about all the kids fated to the torment of a lifetime of collecting records and messing up their eyesight reading?
They like to be in bands too, and usually not for the reasons presented by the teen dramas. They might just like being around each other and getting lost in a haze of poetry and overwhelming guitar feedback.
sequela don’t sound like they’re out here to make friends, nor to get the world to bend to their will. They’re artsy, anxious, and know how to appreciate the smell of a stale-air-filled rehearsal room. “Zavander” is poetic and confused, probably just like the members of this sextet.
Lozenge – Aubrey Plaza
I’m pretty sure that Jane Fonda’s Barbarella or Alain Delon’s gangster characters were enormously popular. I can’t say for sure. I wasn’t there to witness it. But I’ve seen posters. And I’ve often seen those characters creep back into modern pop culture as if they never went away.
Some pop culture figures end up as patron saints of small communities. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The world needs heroes, but what it usually gets instead are terrible bores.
Aubrey Plaza’s career is something of a phenomenon. And I know this without having even followed it closely. Her dead-eye stare and emotionless delivery of jokes have endeared her too many. Aubrey Plaza is the deftones of movie entertainment.
And Lozenge are, potentially, the deftones of the modern era. Like the American bands, or other psych/shoegaze bands they prefer a hazy, powerful sound that is so full of emotion that the band attempts to erase it almost as a way to protect their audiences. In that respect, “Aubrey Plaza,” both the song and the starlet, are excellent representations of what Lozenge is trying to be.