FIST CITY
IT’S 1983, GROW UP! (Black Tent Press)
16/20
Before listening to this album – with its slacker aesthetic and track titles such as Boring Kids, Fuck and Burn Burn Burn – it would have been so easy to jump in the deep end with some cool joke about how boring and predictable the new wave of cut and paste Wavves / Best Coast / Black Lips style bands are. The Tumblr hype that engulfed these bands a couple of years ago caused the formation of legions of thick rimmed, curly haired bedroom musicians, desperate to rewrite the songs of the The Beach Boys to the music of Sonic Youth. The kind of approach with culminated in the thoroughly unpleasant Fidlar. You know, recycle a couple of Portlandia jokes, make some dig about how they’ve probably got some great tie dye tees and have this review banged out in five minutes.
Two songs into the record, it became pretty clear that gem of a review would have to be shelved for a few weeks, or at the very least just hinted at in the first paragraph.
There’s an almost Thermals-like song writing quality apparent on It’s 1983, Grow Up! that is lacking in some many bands thrust into a similar bracket. Fist City have got a more interesting Canadian Sauna Youth meets Titus Andronicus covering Superchunk kind of vibe. Much of the distortion and yelping which defined the previous Hunting You LP has been dropped in favour of a twelve track album of stripped down brilliance, with squealing guitars, clattering drums and a bucketloads of hooks. We’ll leave you with a line from Endless Bummer:
“All I wanted was an endless summer, all I got was an endless bummer /Why am I here, when I should be at the beach?”
Cowabunga dudes, great record.
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Words: Trevor Cavell
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