BB Cream are a bedroom pop punk band from Ottawa. On this, their self-titled debut, the trio (Alanna Why on guitar and vocal duties, Jon Brownlee on bass and tambourine, and Kurt Grunsky on drums) serve up ten tracks that are each as fun and catchy as the next, and all wired with a punky, devil-may-care edge.
If you need convincing that this is true, first track ‘Mother Nature’ serves as the perfect introduction. It sounds like it was made for kids to freak out to in their bedrooms, to bop around and forget that they didn’t get invited to that party before their parents start yelling to kill the volume. The lyrics also establish the deeper themes of the album, namely bored and lonely young people falling in love with each other – “wednesday night with nothing to do / I got a bottle of wine and few screws loose, it’s cool / cause honey you do too”. ‘Narcissus’ is pretty self-explanatory, a riff on C21st vanity which opens with the line “I am obsessed with myself, cos no one else is”. The shuffling instrumentation on ‘Heroine’ is understatedly infectious, eventually smashing into life with a kick against the follies and fallacies of men:
“he thinks slumming it is where it’s at
asks if I’ve read Kerouac
hand on thigh, the line is blurred
‘you’re so cute, you don’t need words’
I guess that’s why I don’t trust men
because it’s always about the hero
not the heroine”
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BB Cream know how to write a smart pop song, the balance between spiky and catchy is consistently pitch-perfect. ‘Good Girl’ is both a college love song and a lament on the difficulties of being a girl (what Why describes as “the brunette nice girl glasses curse”), and ‘6 Dog’ is about having a crush on an older indie rock star “my friend says you look like how listening to Weezer sounds, and I get so excited when your band plays in my town.”
‘See You in the Next Life’ sees Grunsky pass the drums to Brownlee, pick up a guitar and join in with vocals, the track a love song that refuses to be unrequited, even if it takes several lifetimes to work out. ‘Pool Hall’ blooms like a long lost classic pop song, less hectic than much of the record, the lyrics dealing with the miscommunication of young love/unlove. “And I know you think I hate you, but I don’t / I’m just learning how to love myself”. The whole slow and considered thing doesn’t last long though, as next up is ‘Do U Wanna’, a bona fide pop gem. Brownlee’s tambourine gives things a jangly clap-a-long feel, the lyrics following the by-now familiar theme of pining for somebody’s affections, wrapped up in a sweet naivete and a jagged punky edge.
“And its getting kinda late
and I think you’re kinda great
do u wanna
are you gonna
dance with me
like I wanna”
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Closer ‘Marc Bolan’ is slightly slower and more sedate, a song that transcends the crushes referenced on the other tracks, unveiling a sense of pure devotion. It eventually gathers in pace, as if its brakes have failed, the whole thing careening downhill to a manic finale.
BB Cream is a really great album, it’s fun and infectious and has enough sloppy rock ‘n roll to still sound super cool turned way up on headphones. It’s not exactly pure escapism either, not shying away from anxieties but rather confronting them head-on, suggesting jiving around like the awkward idiot you probably are as the perfect cure.
You can get BB Cream on a name-your-price basis via Bandcamp.