Perfect Sweet Talk

If you aren’t in love with Austin punks Sweet Talk after their Ramones-meets-Bolan brain buzz opener ‘Someone Else’ screams out of the speakers from their new LP Double Perfect, then we probably will never be friends. Taking punchy punk and freebasing pop nous wholesale, the four-piece tracks here are fast, loose and addictive as all hell. It can be incredibly buoyant and pop-centric, almost teeth-rottingly so, but therein lies their inherent charm. Take ‘Your Touch’, the penultimate track that feels like a day-glo guitar pop pastiche, Buddy Holly on Ritalin, then floats out in an extended instrumental coda with sci-fi synth, a great bassline left to hang out on its own at the death… The band is tight, playing songs that bounce and stick (straying towards shtick without crossing that line), and held in check by a rigidity that only comes from kicking out the jams every once in a while. Double Perfect was recorded in part by Matthew Melton of Bare Wires and Warm Soda – bands also dealing in polishing the past with the fervent energy and unabashed dynamism of the present – and OBN III’s Orville Neeley, so although these songs are shiny, they retain an inherent grit. Double Perfect ain’t perfect, but is so subliminally entrenched in the rock and roll psyche of yore that your tinnitus will fall in sync with their tunes. Grab it here.

A Warm Soda For A Young Reckless, Ageless Heart

For better or worse, I'm a massive fan of Warm Soda. The band. Warm soda is all kinds of awful. In fact, it’s not soda, it’s soft drink. Or pop. But let’s not digress too much…

Matthew Melton has a way of crafting and recording simple jangly garage rock compositions that are shone through a sepia, nostalgic prism – and I don’t mean Instagram selfie do a quick alteration and everything is groovy either. Like fellow Californian Mikal Cronin, Melton’s Warm Soda feels displaced, as if unearthed cryofrozen from a time capsule from a sunnier, sappier era of which history shows no sign of, like a decade . Something For You is a constant for me when I want to just relax with a goofy grin, and whilst newie Young Reckless Hearts (also out through ever-excellent Castle Face Records) pares things back a dash, the lack of a roaring rock track is compensated by unadulterated love and superfluous melodies flowing forth like bathing honey. Is it old? New? From a kid’s perspective looking forward? An ageing hippy looking back? Any of these things? None? It's a space-age contraption that came from ancient times...or something. I'm sleep deprived. All I know is, Young Reckless Hearts traverses time, space and sensibilities to nestle in the cockles of the (melted) heart.

Young Reckless Hearts is out now. These may be gone, but as always Castle Face are dabbling in weird colour vinyl schemes, and this version is called Pentacolor AND the first 69 bought receive a fridge magnet from the cluttered cover from Melton himself. Don't worry if you miss out though - the next batch is a milky clear vinyl with grape splatter. Seriously enough to give anyone the horn.

Southpaw Women Look At The Mirror

This isn't so new now - most Australian websites mentioned this about a month ago - but Sydney band Mere Women (whose Old Life album of last year was an underrated gem) have a little release coming out soon on American label Southpaw Records (who've put out gear from the likes of Ty Segall, Warm Soda and Bare Wires - excellent garage rock, in other words). Not the kind of avenue I would expect to pick up the band at the best of times; furthermore, the track they are airing from it, 'Hands & Face', was NOT what I expected. That faint, sinuous synth for starters is something you expect to hear emanating out of a Not Not Fun cassette. This is all lysergic menace, with spectral guitar moaning in the background, Amy Wilson's vocals elegiac yet defiant. It's a cavernous slowburner - and I never expected to use either of those superlatives to describe Mere Women, but there you go. And you know what? I goddamn love it. What this means for the weird, cantankerous trio for the future remains to be seen, but if they can balance this kind of track with more virile fare, then 2014 should be a huge one.

Warming Your Soda For You

Someone For You, the debut from Warm Soda has been out for a while, but I managed to pick up a reissued vinyl earlier this week (thanks to the ever-excellent Castle Face Records). The Oakland-based four-piece have risen from the smouldering ashes of Bare Wires to have crafted an album of raucous, loose garage rock and pop, their cocks in one hand and their heart in the other. Simple, dumb, sincere, drunken, fun with a capital F-U-N. My favourite is always swinging - today it's 'Waiting For Your Call'. Whatever - it's all the same, all the time. Seriously this record gets better with every listen - and they are already recording a follow up.

You can buy Someone For You here in either white or bubblegum blue vinyl with rainbow spatterings - party time on the turntable!