Back in January we introduced The Brakes, the forthcoming debut full-length from Portland, Maine outfit Gum Parker coming this spring on Repeating Cloud, describing how the outfit “draw on the considerable DIY history of its members to create good old-fashioned indie rock.” Together Galen Richmond (guitar/vocals), Kate Sullivan-Jones (bass/vocals), Jason Unterreiner (lead guitar/backing vocals), Jeff Hamm (drums/backing vocals) and Bradford Krieger (occasional keyboard) lean into this style with real glee, as typified by lead single ‘Two Subarus’. A song which centres on fond experiences in first bands during the early 00s to “embod[y] this spirit both in style and theme, combining unapologetic nostalgic with a sense of momentous immediacy.”
Which isn’t to say the entire release is all rose-tinted positivity. Latest single ‘Hive’ might not dial down the intensity of its predecessor, nor the affirming momentum which results, but the subject matter is altogether more downbeat. “I had tickets to see Pile in a city a couple hours from my house on what turned out to be a rainy weeknight, and as the day wore on it became clear I wasn’t going to go,” Richmond explains. “By the time it was too late to change my mind, I’d worked myself into a lousy mood and this was the song that came out of that.”
I got too old to leave the house
I pulled the stuffing from the couch
and there’s a wrong taste in my mouth
well this whole night’s just heading south