Their latest EP, charm school, is the perfect example, a noise pop record that provides all the dynamism and rough edges of a live performance without losing too much clarity, each song feeling unique in the way it catches an ephemeral moment, allowing it to retain its motion long after time has moved on. Opener ‘Ten Year Tenure’ jumps into life with enthusiastic instrumentation, guitars and drums on the perpetual verge of losing control, Zoë’s vocals surfing this clamour with an easy confidence. ‘Vinyl Siding’ is equally rambunctious, the vocals this time edging toward classic punk with a dissatisfied insistence, while ‘Scenes from the Couch’ lulls for all of fifteen seconds before racing back with joyous zeal, the lyrics rotating around two or three lines with only slight variations so that a certain mantra-like quality adds to the momentum.

‘Day Dogs’ tells of post-summer blues through a prism of nostalgia and cathartic energy, before ‘Ice Cream Dinner’ provides the closest thing to a breather on the release, the half-paced instrumentation and crooned vocals eventually rising into a crash of percussion and yelled vocals. Closer ‘Black Dodge’ puts the pedal to the metal once more, the punk vocals coming off somewhere between threat and warning as the guitars swell and attempt to drown out the words.

charm school is out now on Disposable America and Too Far Gone Records, and as a digital download from the Halfsour Bandcamp page.

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