♫♪  The Courtneys - “Mars Attacks (featuring Young Braised)”

The Courtneys are a self-procliamed “sun drenched flying nun influenced pop” band from the Vancouver scene, which seems to be killing it in a number of genres as of late. Onto the track: my initial impression here is a strong Best Coast vibe, in that it’s a fairly straightforward power-chord + reverby vocal harmonies number, altogether agreeable yet not at all groundbreaking — and specifically I’m picking up on that track she made for Converse (as in the shoes your roommate is wearing right now) which had a lil rap verse on it. And it is indeed Young Braised’s presence on this track that simultaneously makes it vigorously smh-worthy and what makes it stand out from the rest of the three-chord jangle pop pack.

The verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure, extraterrestrial lyrical content, and element of almost aggressive goofiness from YB’s verse are all straight from the playbook of none other than Blink 182, and if the track doesn’t share any similarities to that band in production or aesthetic, there is a strong similarity in how much of a fuck they give about creating anything like “high art” (although all parties probably were really high while they wrote and recorded the song). Actually this is to their credit - if you go to a label named Hockey Dad Records looking for the next major breakthrough in Western thought, that’s on you, and anyways who cares? Fuck it, let’s just have a good time. Basically I’m too much of a scrooge to really endorse this outright, but I will say that this one stands out simply because you can feel how much fun both The Courtneys and Young Braised had while making it.

• The Courtneys: http://thecourtneys.bandcamp.com
• Young Braised: http://www.youngbraised.com
• Hockey Dad Records: http://www.hockeydadrecords.com

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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