Album Review: The Persian Leaps - Your City, Underwater
As the leaves begin to turn, and as kids start to head back
to school, it becomes more apparent that summer is over, and autumn is nearly
upon us. And, like clockwork, as they have for the last two years during
portion of the calendar, the Twin Cities-based jangle pop band, The Persian
Leaps, are readying their fourth EP, Your
City, Underwater.
Sticking to the successful formula from their previous
efforts that I’ve reviewed for this site, The Leaps manage to pack a walloping
power pop punch into a concise five-song set—wasting no time, and literally not
coming up for air until the aptly titled “Short and Sour” (it’s 90 seconds
long) finishes up.
In my previous reviews of EPs by The Persian Leaps, as well
as other groups that tap into a specific nostalgia sound, I believe I have
stated that the 90s are alive and well—and Your
City, Underwater continues that effort. Taking cues from groups like
Teenage Fanclub and early-to-mid-period R.E.M, the guitars are plentiful, loud,
and crunchy.
Like a bulk of The Leaps canon, the songs on Your City are infectious and hook
driven—good luck getting a song like “The Weather” (a piece about climate
change) out of your head after hearing it just once. This set also allows the
group’s vocalist and guitarist, Drew Forsberg, to showcase some sardonic wit
within the lyrics—“I’m not happy, you’re
not happy, let’s elope and start an unhappy family…We can be as wretched as we
please, we can climb the depths of our despair,” he sings, with all
earnestness, on “Terribly Happy.”
Then, on the aforementioned closing track, “Short and Sour,”
Forsberg drops this cutting opening line: “If
silence were golden, you’d always be broke.”
Tapping into the nostalgia for “alternative rock,” The
Persian Leaps continue to build onto the genre rather than just grave robbing
it, and Your City, Underwater shows
in its brief running time that there are still plenty of interesting and
worthwhile things happening in guitar driven music.
Your City, Underwater is out on September 16th via Land Ski Records.
Your City, Underwater is out on September 16th via Land Ski Records.
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