Honeyuck are a duo from Satellite Beach in Florida, or in their own words, “just 2 cute girls making cute tunes”. Cute is a descriptor that’s pretty hard to avoid in a review of an album like very tiny songs, the Honeyuck’s latest offering, because the band make lo-fi indie pop songs as sweet and twee as the cool child-like album art. The duo fall somewhere between classic indie pop of the Sarah Records roster and the newer bedroom pop acts we write about all the time, combining a naively upbeat sound with lyrics about the small but significant anxieties of everyday life. The band describe the album thusly:
“this summer was full of unrequited love and powdered donuts; our hearts were as broken as half the slushy machines in town. but we still managed 2 make some cool jams in the meantime”
The songs are bright and brisk, all seven clocking in at around 12 minutes. Opener ‘school starts’ is about feeling sick with stress at the beginning of the school year, while ‘talentless’ is about summoning the courage to dump that good-for-nothing partner. ‘strawberries’ is all gooey and gushing, that hot quick antsy feeling of crushing on someone real bad (“You’re the cutest thing I’ve seen / I think we’ve hung out in my dreams / at least 10 times since we first met / and I don’t know your name yet”), while ‘drive-thru’ is about being in love with more than just a person, but with being alive:
“i try to see the love in everything
and i am told that there is feeling
in the birds and the bees and the bark on the trees
in math equations and everything that u read”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1215926646 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=4223815913]
‘pretty happy’ is about feeling just that, ‘softboy’ is about being frozen out by the guy/girl who only lives down the street and closer ‘wasted eyes’ is soft and dreamy and pretty sad (“every person wants somebody to keep them company / because the company is free / but u never invite me). It’s a fitting end to an album that has barely just begun. I guess you have no choice but to hit that old repeat button.
You can get very tiny songs as a pay-what-you-want download via the Honeyuck bandcamp page, or pre-order a cassette via the folks at Viridian Sounds (who btw also play in the cool band Naps who you should check out).
