Now, Nice Try are back with another album (another self-titled album, at that), and not too much as changed in the meantime aside from the addition of Jake Alexander on bass. Robinson is still making super sweet pop songs that don’t outstay their welcome, and the songs still form a winning blend of reflective and carefree attitudes.

The album opens with ‘Waves’, a song about coping through motion, avoiding difficult times by jumping on a bus and riding it ten hours south. It’s a great introduction for the uninitiated, elastic guitars wrapped in just enough fuzz as Robinson delivers her gently candid lyrics.

‘Soft Rock’ paints a little impressionistic scene, floating in a lake beneath the hot dry air of an approaching storm, small anxieties wriggling into even the nicest moments. “Inevitably the internal shout,” Robinson sings, “am I good enough for you or anyone else?”

‘Angry’ is a minute-long blast of lo-fi pop that’s bursting with a need to share true feelings, looking for someone to be the deep and cool plunge pool at the bottom of a waterfall of fears and frustrations. ‘Smart’ is another bouncy indie rock song that feels like the sequel, although as is often the case, things seem to have moved on to something equally uncertain and confusing. “Shut my mouth for nearly a year,” Robinson sings, “when I told you how I felt, you said it was weird.”

Robinson yearns from an old friend on’ ‘Micah’, someone who has moved on to new jobs and houses and dogs, but who (clearly) still means a lot. It’s also a song about stasis, our narrator asking “what do I have to show for the last year? I’m older and wiser but I’m still just right here.”

‘No Good’ is reminiscent of the soft pop of Free Cake For Every Creature, as smooshy and sleepy as a bedtime phonecall to a loved one, while closer ‘Relax’ creates a sense of golden gladness from small meaningful moments. It’s the perfect finale to the album, ending on a kind and hopeful note that murmurs away the worries that have come before.

“I could walk you home
or wave to you across the road
and either way it goes I’ll be satisfied to know
our paths are in line
and I’m just happy to be somewhere
I don’t feel like I’m wasting most of my time”

You can get Nice Try on LP or a name-your-price download from the Nice Try Bandcamp page.

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And, of course, being comprehensive is impossible these days, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the collection.

If I Die in Mississippi – Artless
(RIYL: bedroom pop, ambient, Sam Ray, sad)

In Love With a Ghost – Let’s Go
(RIYL: electronic, chillwave, dream pop)

Jake Bellissimo – Piece of Ivy
(RIYL: indie pop, Gay Angel)

Jemima Coulter – lampshade ep
(RIYL: bedroom pop, chilled out, Volcano Choir)

Joyride! – Half Moon Bay
(RIYL: pop punk, indie rock, All Dogs)

Julia Brown – An Abundance of Strawberries
(RIYL: experimental, indie pop, Elephant 6)

Lake Michigan – Gleaming
(RIYL: bedroom pop, late night vibes, Arrange)

Lance Bangs – Lance Mountain
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, Colin Thibodeauxxx)

Lazy Legs – s/t
(RIYL: shoegaze, noise pop, feedback)

Little Kid – Flowers
(RIYL: fuzz pop, bedroom folk, reflective thoughts)

Long Neck – Spring Cleaning
(RIYL: bedroom pop, Cyberbully Mom Club, Jawbreaker Reunion)

Max Gardener – Memory Lounge
(RIYL: dream pop, bedroom pop, slacker)

Mineral Girls – Seven Inches of Release
(RIYL: noise pop, emo, indie rock)

Moin Moin – Dawn
(RIYL: folk, bedroom pop, delicate, quiet)

MOLAR / Pale Kids – Split
(RIYL: pop punk, riot grrrl, The Courtneys)

Molly Drag – Tethered Rendering
(RIYL: bedroom pop, experimental, dreamy vibes)

Monarch Mtn – Everyone is Here
(RIYL: grand melancholy, nighttime)

Monster Rally – Mystery Cove
(RIYL: experimental, hip hop, tropicana)

Moving In – Sunburn
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, teenage heartbreak)

Naps – Happy All the Time Forever Always
(RIYL: ambient, experimental, tape hiss)

No Museums – The Drifting Knives
(RIYL: basement rock, indie pop, lo-fi)

Nice Try – s/t
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, Frankie Cosmos)

Nikolas Escudero – 100
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, slacker)

No Dice Tapes – 2016: the year all bad things went away and everything turned out to be fine
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, good causes, ironic titles)

Noname – Telefone
(RIYL: hip hop, rap, courageous poetry)

Be sure to check out the previous sections of our favourite free music list here.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2016: I – N appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Your Best American Girl – Mitski
2. Shine – Solids
3. Vertebrae – Sam Moss
4. Joy Lies Down – Cloud (Bern Yr Idols comp from Audio Antihero)
5. Near You – Adeline Hotel
6. I Saw You – Outer Spaces
7. Madeline – Yoni & Geti
8. Keep it Light – ARMS
9. Figure It Out – Jake Rollins
10. We Learned to Cry – Adeem The Artist
11. ant hill paradise – Bedbug
12. I’m Young – Erin Tobey
13. coca cola purgatory – Ryder Eaton
14. Muppet Babies – Nice Legs (FRY YR BRN comp from Cereal + Sounds & Z Tapes)
15. Dawn Raid – The Second Hand Marching Band & Benni Hemm Hemm
16. President – Nice Try
17. SHIP – Fake Boyfriend
18. If You Let It – Sioux Falls
19. sorry for not answering the phone, i’m too busy trying to fly away – In Love with a Ghost
20. Clueless – Holiday Home
21. Realistic Birthday Music – Hallelujah the Hills
22. Age of Consent – Cayetana
23. Seattle – Tincho
24. Lance bangs #1 single released on 4/20 – Lance Bangs
25. Cigarettes – Daytime TV
26. Everything Costs – Radical Face
27. Tired of IPAs – talons’
28. Soak – Good Good Blood
29. Heavy as a mountain – Moin Moin

The post April 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opener ‘President’ is, at its base, a catchy indie pop track, but some chugging guitar takes things into punkier territory as Robinson delivers some pretty heartfelt lyrics (“I just need to learn to be whatever I am to you”). ‘wet willy’ follows a similar pattern, the lyrics about the heart-lightening effect of meeting a new friend,

“push everything bad away
cling on to something new
I will finally let myself feel okay
and it will all start
on this morning walk with you”

‘patience’ has frantic instrumentation and slightly more composed vocals, while ‘water pennies’ begins a lot slower, just vocals and cracks of electric guitar before the drums come galloping in and we get another lovely indie pop song.

“I knew that when I got back home
not much would be different
nothing has blown over
now it’s October
and what I think about come Fall
is how little you’ve changed
I feel so much older
and colder and stronger”

The breezy ‘minus two’ hides anxious lyrics, while ‘No Big deal’ is about wanting to go back to a simpler time, an easy life in which everything was no big deal. “I just want it to feel like no big deal,” she sings. “Let’s go back to life the way it was before / talking all night on your mom’s basement floor”. ‘magical thinking’ is bright and defiant in a kind and pleasant way (“Somehow I woke up to see I am essentially free /I don’t need to be told,  I’m finally in control / I’m eternally outside on the school bench in the springtime”)”, before ‘Your Hair’ closes things out with a deceptively upbeat song about being in a bad relationship, the narrator coming to her senses and seeing past the other persons’s undeniable charm. “What do I say to you when you always give me nothing? / you make me feel like nothing”.

You can get Nice Try on a name-your-price download from the band’s Bandcamp page. Be sure to also check out their online store, especially to get you hand’s on some Nice Try socks!

The post Nice Try – S/T appeared first on Various Small Flames.