Vancouver trio Nice Apple, aka Gal Av-Gay, Emily O’Brien and Lauren Nelson, “was forged in a kitchen, hand picked for the apple festival in the orchards of Vancouver BC.” Since then the band have been perfecting a brand of indie pop that’s short and sloppy and super fun.
A product of the local Vancouver scene, Nice Apple emerged from a variety of other bands, with Av-Gay playing in Dumb and Security Guard, Nelson in Maneater (and formerly Fuzzy P and My Wife), and O’Brien having played in My Wife and Cruel Sport. That said, there’s a sense of cohesion in their sound that suggests Nice Apple were meant to be, an easy-going energy and playful spirit where the shared vocals compliment one another perfectly.
Following up a split release with the aforementioned Cruel Sport, this Friday sees Nice Apple release their debut album, This Time Nice Apple is Auto-Cathecting, on Hidden Bay Records. Combining the earnestness of Belle and Sebastian with the acerbic disinterest of Patio, the record is packed full of scattered pop songs pitched somewhere between delighted and deadpan. Opener ‘Are You Still There?’ is a perfect example, the near-spoken delivery stretching between droll and defiant as the chugging guitars work an irreverent backdrop.
I’m paving my past
with dreams of the future.
You won’t make me laugh.
Maybe I’m over the past
The mischievous ‘Hard To Know’ has an infectious verbosity and prankish self-awareness (“But I don’t have the best grammar when I talk, my sentences seem to go on and on and on…”), while ‘Sculpt Edit’ provides a punk urgency that slides apart whenever the promised crescendo threatens to hit. Such a thing is no issue for follow-up ‘Rollin’, a downhill rattle of a song that sweeps you up into a singalong bravado, acting as something of a palette cleanser before the return of the roguish charm. However, the wry tone of ‘Favourite City’ and ‘Hit and Miss’ never quite commits to full sardonic wit, always circling back to the possibility of something more heartfelt.
Photo by Ren Burress