To everyone’s enduring lament, Douglas Martin can’t dissect every single girl-group slanted single that slides down the information super highway.
So, after taking a lengthy vacation of exactly one Bleached song, I’m back by popular demand (no Popeye). For the A-side of the forthcoming “Searching Through the Past” seven-inch, one of LA’s best new punk bands– born from the dissolution of one of LA’s best old punk bands— dial down the volume knob to deliver an endlessly catchy three-and-a-half minutes of lovelorn 80’s mall-punk. Their next trick turns it up to eleven.
Jennifer Clavin saves her most powerful wail for “Electric Chair,” wherein the band manages to kick up even more dust than any prior Bleached single. The guitars are embossed in a thick topcoat of grunge. The drums punch like a back-alley brawl next to The Smell’s entrance. There’s even a whistling solo. That wasn’t an attempt to be literary or poetic with description; there’s actually whistling. As the Clavin Sisters pull out all the stops in classic songwriting construction, there’s an undercurrent of longing that runs underneath most of the tunes they’ve released so far in 2011, and “Electric Chair” is no exception.
There’s a reason why the song’s clearest lyric goes, “I don’t see you anywhere.” Teenage heartbreak has always been the perfect fodder for bubblegum-punk, and Bleached has tapped into a way to make both endlessly replayable. If you’ve ever played a catchy punk tune at “annoy your neighbors” volume to drown out the sound of your sorrows, meet your new favorite band.
Electric Chair by WeGetPress
Bleached – Searching Through The Past by Surfing on Steam
