{"id":19586,"date":"2020-10-25T05:30:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T09:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19586"},"modified":"2020-09-23T13:22:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T17:22:48","slug":"album-review-juicebumps-hello-pinky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/25\/album-review-juicebumps-hello-pinky\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Juicebumps \u2013 Hello Pinky!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"For listeners new to the sound of Juicebumps, the opening moments of Hello Pinky!<\/i> make it difficult to sort out what the band is about. The brief \u201cScanner\u201d features a melange of found sounds: a twisted radio dial reminiscent of The Ramones\u2019 \u201cDo You Remember Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Radio?\u201d, a snippet from \u201860s sitcom Leave it to Beaver<\/i>, and a cold war era public service message. Those random bits of audio eventually segue into \u201cWet Leather,\u201d a punky, nearly-instrumental number with surf-n-spy textures reminiscent of Man…or Astro Man? Or early Devo.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only toward the tail end of that tune that vocalist Parker surfaces (all four band members use mononyms), displaying a yelpy, aggressive vocal demeanor. And with those sonic elements established, Juicebumps have finally set out the musical landscape for Hello Pinky!<\/i> The quartet\u2019s approach is taut, speedy playing, with the vigor of hardcore, the bratty fun of pop-punk, and the hookiness of power pop.<\/p>\n

Juicebumps even flirt with the sonic variety of experimental synth bands, folding insistent, nervy synthesizer textures into their musical assault. But at its center, the group is focused on guitar. In fact, the powerful axework on \u201cFraidy Cat\u201d is vaguely redolent of late \u201870s Cheap Trick. But throughout the record, Spencer\u2019s bleeping synths engage in nervy dialogue with Luca\u2019s bass and Nick\u2019s drums.<\/p>\n

The lyrics of \u201cSmalltalk\u201d consist of a lengthy succession of two- or three-syllable comments, the sort of things that might show up as comments on a Facebook or Instagram live streamed video. In its own way, the tune is a form of mild social commentary. More vintage audio snippets are accompanied by the band\u2019s trademark surf-meets-synthpop style.<\/p>\n

All across Hello Pinky!<\/i>, Juicebumps navigate the high-wire feat of combining herky-jerky rhythms with pop melodies, off-kilter subject matter and an irreverent, trash-culture worldview. And they do it successfully, balancing those elements in a way that never lets one characteristic overwhelm the incongruent others. For example, the synthesizer solo on \u201cWetboi\u201d is balanced by stuttering, distorted guitar lines.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all breakneck-pace punk-pop, though. \u201cAlarm Clock\u201d is a mid-tempo piece that (oddly enough) almost swings. Odder still, its instrumental breaks recall the knotty, polyrhythmic \u201880s lineup of King Crimson. But while the musicians of Juicebumps might harbor the skills to play ambitious progressive rock, they seem more comfortable serving up a subversively oddball music that merely suggests other styles in subtle, plausibly deniable fashion.<\/p>\n

The song titles read like outtakes from a Shonen Knife songwriting session: \u201cAnts!,\u201d \u201cSoggy Meow Meow,\u201d \u201cJumpy.\u201d And on its surface, that music seems simple enough. But a close listen reveal layers of creativity and cleverness. The band\u2019s online bio describes Juicebumps as \u201cSan Francisco\u2019s favorite hard to listen to spank-rock band,\u201d but applying the effort to dig into the songs on Hello Pinky!<\/i> has the potential to reap rewards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For listeners new to the sound of Juicebumps, the opening moments of Hello Pinky! make it difficult to sort out what the band is about. The brief \u201cScanner\u201d features a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[4312],"class_list":["post-19586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-juicebumps","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19588,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19586\/revisions\/19588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}