Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back

The Veronicas “Jealous”

Sam: The only good thing to come from RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under, an All Stars season one-tier whiff from an otherwise unassailable franchise, was the introduction (to me) of the Veronicas. Based on the reaction to their appearance from the assembled Aussie queens, I gather they may be quite popular “down under,” but I don’t have my finger on the pulse of major label Australian pop music so I brought zero context to their charming cameo, leading me to check out their latest album, Human. It’s not all good (it’s Australian), but “Jealous” has a very b-side Body Talk-era Robyn energy that many have strived for and few have achieved. If nothing else, this is what I took from watching seven out of eight episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under (couldn’t be bothered to even finish).

Josiah: I guess because the name seems like the Donnas and makes me think of Archie comics, I was expecting the Veronicas to be some kind of rockabilly garage rock shit. What’s going to happen when that kind of music comes back? I mean, there are still people my age (old) that are trying to make it happen I guess. But I think garage rock is probably the worst most unlovable genre of music rn, like ska 5 years ago. Anyway this song does sound like Archie, but Riverdale Archie. It’s a nice sultry generic dance pop tune.
 

One Step Closer “Pringle Street”

Sam: This was shared with me under the very in-group auspices of “what if O Pioneers was a straight edge hardcore band” and honestly I genuinely think this kind of sounds like the era of OP I played in. Do I think this band has ever heard the O Pioneers / AJJ split? No. Do I think they’re named after a Linkin Park song? Yes. Will I look deeper to find out if that’s true, or if Hotleier-style they now pretend it’s not even though it definitely is? No. Is Pringle Street a reference to the tubed potato chips you crave like once a year? Probably. Will I find out? No. Am I hungry now? Yes.

Josiah: Damn this is pretty sick and very cool. I think it sounds like that band Sex Positions that was on Deathwish at the turn of the century. But I’m sure it’s referencing way cooler things than we’re mentioning, and they’d probably want to die from all the non-cool stuff we’re talking about. Most importantly, it’s just Bane but with some Jazzmaster jazz chords. I bet this band has sick merch. Merch is really all we need.
 

Rival Consoles “Pulses of Information”

Josiah: I’m still on a real IDM and breakcore kick lately, and I feel like I need more artists to stroke my chin to, particularly since so many of the big important artists have not aged well in my ears (Boards of Canada needs more… sidechain compression? Is that a thing? IDK it sounds too simple now. Someone’s going to yell at me for saying this). My little brother has been telling me to listen to Rival Consoles for as long as I can remember, and he finally got me hooked with this new tune “Pulses of Information,” which delivers exactly what its title promises with warm, pulsing tones and plenty of melancholy ambiance.

Sam: Started playing this, looked down, somehow I'm wearing a turtleneck? This is so cool. I wish I thought to listen to this kind of stuff on my own but anytime I'm left to my own devices I'm just like "hmmm been a minute since I listened to the Lawrence Arms" but it's never been a minute.
 

Fievel Is Glauque “Unfinding”

Josiah: Okay, this is six months old. But now that I’m out of the music writer game I’m listening to even less music than before (which was almost none). This song is cool as hell. I mean, quite literally cool: the band name is so pretentious it feels like you’re smoking a cigarette while you read it, and the song is some perfect noughties indie, using a strummy rockin’ backbone to set the stage for some aloof vocals and some noodling that reminds me of… Django Reinhardt? This is some 2000s TinyMixTapes type of shit, like the Fiery Furnaces or Shapes & Sizes or whatever. It’s cool to be cool again.

Sam: Finally - I fucking hate this. This is the exact kind of gratingly dull pretentious indie music that made me ignore tons of good stuff from the era Josiah is describing because I just assumed everything on every blog sounded this horrible. Oh my god it autoplayed to another one of their songs while I was writing this and its even worse. This is like being trapped in an Exclaim editorial meeting in 2003 while someone with an even worse haircut than mine pitches a band exactly like this for the cover (again) because of their innovative approach to "community" and, like, sucking terribly.