Fifteen years ago, Fountains of Wayne released their eponymous debut LP, a near-perfect set of twelve power-pop songs supercharged with clever lyrics about life on both sides of the bridges and tunnels which connect New York and New Jersey. The second single from that record, “Sink to the Bottom,” managed to turn the line “I just wanna…” into a powerful B chorus.

Even this many years later, it’s impossible to hear Jersey quartet Big Troubles turn that same phrase into the hook of “Misery” without thinking of their musical forebears. It isn’t just the repetition of the lyric–it has as much to do with the fact that Big Troubles tap into the mid-1990s musical zeitgeist, that post-grunge, slacker rock era when there was no shortage of excellent bands getting signed to major labels, a Superdrag for every Superchunk.

“Misery,” the second song on the band’s debut, Romantic Comedy, has an earnestness and a strain of melancholy absent from the FoW catalog, but the core promise to the listener is essentially the same: memorable melodies flanked by smart guitar parts. Although Big Troubles play it subdued, there is clearly an affinity here for the classic power-pop sensibility admired by fellow tri-staters Free Energy. Where those two sounds come together–at the intersection of 120 Minutes and Big Star–is where you’ll find Big Troubles.

Click here to listen to Romantic Comedy on Spotify.

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It’s not a surprise to discover that Andrew McAllister, the main man behind the Los Angeles combo Vanish Valleys, is a film editor by vocation. Film editors make their living by taking raw film footage and picking and choosing what goes where – in many ways, the editor has as much say in the final form of a movie as the director does. McAllister brings his editor’s eye to Vanish Valley, mixing elements from different genres into an organic whole.

“Races,” a track from Vanish Valley’s second album Get Good, is at heart an alt-country track reminiscent of The Jayhawks or Wilco at the more traditional minded end of their spectrum. The song’s tempo and harmonica hook are pure Americana, but then McAllister and Vanish Valley wrap the song in indie-rock ambience, awash in rough sonic edges and a guitar line that recalls college-rock greats like Let’s Active or the Vulgar Boatmen if they’d been covered in sagebrush rather than kudzu.

It’s hard to get a handle on exactly what genre “Races” slots into – just when it seems like it’s one thing, it subtly becomes something else. Like a well-assembled film, “Races” builds a sustained mood from disparate pieces but withholds enough of its secrets to make repeat listenings a necessity.

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September & October 2011 MP3 Rewind

RACES “Big Broom”

Film School “Heart Full of Pentagons”

Teen blogger phenom Tavi recently started Rookie, a new website slavishly devoted to dissecting the late ‘80s / early ‘90s concept of the female adolescent (think Clare Danes as Angela Chase abutting Morrissey rubbing shoulders with Laura Palmer). Even though Letting Up Despite Great Faults is sometimes a trio of guys who left their teen years in the dust awhile back, “Teenage Tide” fits right in with Rookie’s milieu.

“Teenage Tide” is a pastiche of basic Jesus and Mary Chain bompity-bomp rhythms overlaid with the wispiest vocals this side of Stuart Murdoch. The song’s pace quickens during its final minute, building tension, as the guitar takes hold and lifts the listener with it, as if it was scoring the end of a John Hughes film.

Lyrically “Teenage Tide” captures the angst that makes those transitive years so nebulous and emotional, but also singular. Vocalist and band founder Michael Lee kicks off the song with the line “My teenage war still marks me undefeated in your room again.” And later he adds, “I’m falling to pieces, too scared to be the same.” That’s a rallying cry for teenage confusion, if ever there was one.

Hear “Teenage Tide” in concert with the rest of the tracks on the Paper Crush EP, Letting Up’s most recent release, which Old Flame Records released digitally on August 2, 2011.

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The High Dials “Teenage Love Made Me Insane”

September & October 2011 MP3 Rewind

“Explain it to Me” begins with a screech of guitar feedback. This brief overture sets the stage for the entire song, which is guided by its looping guitar riff throughout the hazy, shoe-gazy tune delivered courtesy of Delaware-based duo The Sky Drops.

Guitarist Rob Montejo (ex-Smashing Orange) teamed up with drummer Monika Bullette; her backing vocals mesh with Montejo on lead, creating a twist on the duo’s otherwise obvious debt to Kevin Shields and his ilk.

“Explain it to Me” has a heady, psych-tinged side as well. The song sets out to hypnotize the listener with tom-heavy rhythms that run just below the surface of scuffed up, gauzy melodies.

Find “Explain it to Me” keeping company with more tracks from the band on their Making Mountains EP, which Fridabear Records released in April 2011. (Want to hear even more from The Sky Drops? The EP is a follow-up to the duo’s debut full-length, Bourgeois Beat (2009), which is also worth a listen.)

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