Pretty & Nice’s first release for Hardly Art, Get Young, is officially out! My vow of silence is finally broken! I’ve had this album for two months and omgomgomgomg it is overwhelmingly good. (That has been building up for some time – I’m relieved I could express it in print so as to save myself the physical embarrassment of flailing my hands and jumping up and down.) I had the fortune of doing an interview with them 2 months ago for another magazine I wrote for (you can find it here) and have obsessed over this album ever since.
It took six months to record Get Young in their own all-analog, basement studio, putting in long hours and agonizing over every slight detail, staying up late in the night to record a sequence of bells on “Gypsy,” inviting friends to stomp and hoot at the end of “Pixies” and layering the hell out of each song with an armada of instruments scattered throughout their home. The result: their songcraft is unique and infinitely charming; the album progresses from frenetic punk epic to to sagacious pop classic, blending abrasive guitars bursting from broken amps with subtle vocoder hooks and pretty, oh-so-pretty pop falsetto. The guitars on “Pixies,” lilting and winding, are a melange of late Of Montreal and early Queens of the Stone Age, while the immaculate closure of “Wandering Eye” hits with an unexpected poignancy and ends with an immediate sense of withdrawal. Dammit, it’s already over? And clocking in at just under thirty minutes, listening to Get Young in its entirety relates an even stronger sense of accomplishment, like I just did an intense work out, or something. But with my brain!
This is the indie-pop epic you didn’t know you were waiting for. I’m often skeptical of “Best of the year…” type statements, but I’m going to make one. Get ready. This, if not the best, one of the best albums this year.
Just get this album, however you can. I won’t even pretend any more; buy it, download it, send for it via money order, or carrier pigeon. And considering P&N’s seeming obsession with the broken and archaic (their blown out speakers, their vintage recording studio, their old synthesizers), I’m sure they have a carrier pigeon package-plan tucked away somewhere in their scheme for world domination.
Then go see them live and freak out. I don’t know how people can thrash that hard and play guitar parts that intricate. Unless, of course, they are magicians. As I’ve suspected from the beginning.
And “Wandering Eye.” Goddamn that song hits hard. I’m still reeling.
From Get Young – “Wandering Eye”:
The entire album streaming here, for a limited time.
And here’s a live video of “Tora, Tora, Tora” at Great Scott in Allston Rock City. Not the best quality, but, they play so fast it looks like they’re being sped up.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfge6AT5Luc[/youtube]
Nice! and Pretty!