The A-side of the release belongs to Naps’ The Most Beautiful Place in the World, an EP which continues the evolution of the band that we’ve been following for a while. Utilising drum machines and electronics, the band now create a sound that’s equal parts charming bedroom pop and misanthropic indie rock that fans of acts such as Gorgeous Bully will love. The lo-fi pop of ‘bad vibrations’ get things off to a great start, fuzzed out and warm and wistful, eventually descending into a storm of screechy guitars. Ryan Stanley handles the vocals on this one, delivering lines about not fitting with societal norms.

“Can’t stand up to the world’s expectations
I’m living on a bad bad vibration”

‘the most beautiful place on earth is the moon’ is fronted by Katryn Macko, another exemplary lo-fi pop song which has perhaps the sharpest emotional edge on the EP, while single ‘Social Skills’ sounds as warm and fuzzy as a broken VHS. Here, Stanley delivers lines that deal with the issues that many young people face today, a generation “propped up on pills” who “don’t know how to feel”. The Naps side ends with a cover of ‘Aquarius’ by Danny L Harle, an auto-tuned indie pop track that opens with an audio clip of weird ruminations on heaven and hell.

Yikes then take over for the B-side, the four-piece’s raw, guitar-driven indie rock sounding all the more loose-limbed and raucous following the electronic-leaning Naps side. Comercial Music kicks off with ‘twinklejam’, a dynamic and slightly mathy indie rock track, before the slacker vibes of ‘Thought You’d Say’, with its heavy guitars and crashing percussion juxtaposed against the flat, disaffected vocals.

“she’d given it all away
but that’s what I thought
you’d
say”

As we said in our preview, ‘Double Bacon Cheeseburger’ is a slow-burning slacker rock track which starts out almost tender but accelerates into something riotous and loud, the strange lyrics delivered in a drawl, “I saw an angel eating a speciality pile of salted meat / the grease ran down her body to make the circle complete”. The split is finished with a cover of Pavement’s ‘in the mouth a desert’, a track which proves the perfect material for Yikes’ lazy lo-fi rock aesthetic.

All in all, The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music represents a great introduction to two of Florida’s best bands and is an album you’d be foolish to miss. You can grab it now on cassette via It Takes Time Records and Viridian Sounds. Also, there’s still time to catch Naps on their US tour too, check out the remaining dates below:

05/24 Brooklyn, NY @ Palisades w/ Boosegumps, Normal Person, Rita Fishbone
05/29 Montclair, NJ @ The Spot w/ Coping Skills, Archie Alone, Circadian Clock, Clam Jam 06/02 Savannah, GA @ The Bomb Shelter w/ Coping Skills, Buddy Chapman Jr., Vinay Arora 06/04 Tallahassee, FL @ The Sweat Lodge w/ Yikes, Coping Skills

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