Straight Outta Bandcamp is a regular feature on BDCwire that digs up solid recent releases from various artists in the wild Internet dreamland known as Bandcamp. A bit too much time spent tag-surfing the bandcamp pages of rockers near and far can yield extremely enjoyable results. Luckily, we’re here to share our discoveries with you.
Connecticut-based garage rats High Pop arrived in a cosmic ice cream truck with the sweet melodies of 2012’s “Hip Hip Hooray,” and continue to deliver the sugar on “Holy Smokes!”, a nine track full length released last week. The duo’s garagey sensibility remains intact, avoiding overly lush recordings, while delivering a balance of fuzzy romps and psyched out pop melodies. While the A-side is chock full of the former, creating a caffeinated pace for the record, tunes like “Day Breaks” and “The Summer Means Nothing Without You,” provide some relief to the album, echoing simple sentiments over more hollow acoustic grooves. In all, the lyrics of the entire effort combined could probably fit neatly on one side of a napkin, but that’s more or less the joy of it. “Holy Smokes!” is the perfect soundtrack to end your summer with a stoned out smile on your face.
