Vancouver trio, The Courtneys, sit somewhere in that sweet spot where garage rock, punk, and bubblegum pop meet. When I heard single "Silver Velvet" late last year, I started getting excited for the band's then forthcoming release on Flying Nun. The song has a propuslive vibe. It's what I'd call a "driving song." Jen Twynn Payne's almost sugary sweet vocals are offset by the fuzzed-out guitar of Courtney Loove and the chugging bass of Syndey Koke so that the song achieves a pretty blissful blend of noise and hooky pop.
The LP, The Courtneys II, came out this past Friday; and it's pretty much everything I was hoping for based on that first taste. There aren't really any ballads here. Each of the songs on The Courtneys II has that same forward-moving feeling of "Silver Velvet." And leaving or travel or moving through life are themes that come up quite a bit in the album's first half -- from "I know I'm going, but I don't know when" on "Country Song" to "It's time for us to let go. Slack off and hit the open road" on the amazingly catchy "Tour."
Payne isn't a belter by any stretch of the imagination, but her vocals weave pretty seamlessly in and out of some subtly different styles. She's dreamy on the psychedelic and jammy "Lost Boys" ("You look just like you did in 1986, and that's why you're a vampire teenage boyfriend"). She's deadpan on a song like the straightforward "25." Payne pulls off 60s retro-garage on "Mars Attacks" and "Frankie."
I don't mean to imply that The Courtneys II is all over the map. It's not. Like I said, the differences from song to song are subtle. Almost every song makes you want to roll down the car window and let your free hand bounce on the rushing air. For the most part, it's 90s-inspired grunge pop -- like Juliana Hatfield fronting Smashing Pumpkins, which is actually quite awesome -- but there is enough variation to keep The Courtneys II interesting throughout.
The Courtneys II is also a milestone of sorts. The band have said that Flying Nun Records, with its stable of bands like The Clean, The Chills, The Bats, Chris Knox, and more, has been a huge influence on their sound; so it's fitting that they would be the label's first-ever signing from outside of New Zealand.
This is one I'm going to be playing all spring and summer. The Courtneys II is out now on Flying Nun Records.
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