The Stevens
The Stevens (label-mates of Dick Diver over at Chapter Music) hail from Melbourne, and at the beginning of November last year they dropped record by the title of A History of Hygiene. So let’s talk history. By now the savvy listener (you) knows that any song will be an appropriation of sounds from the past, and this is most easily demonstrated in guitar-based rock. You can trace the ancestry of a particular guitar tone or playing style like blonde hair back up a family tree (the oldest electric guitar recording is barely 80 years old, after all). With these sounds come the moods that surrounded their genesis. We’ve all experienced the transporting function of music, the power to evoke a particular mood or memory from the past. It’s kinda like time travel. But in your brain. Woah.
As a result, when I listen to opening track ‘From Puberty to Success’ I can’t help but think of 90s bands like Pavement, who really crystallised in musical form the mood Stephen Malkmus referred to as ‘this morass of slackness’. The Stevens are historians, and they bring us treasures from the past. This is your new fix of spineless rock from a lucky country. Musicians who have been anaesthetized by a removal from any sense of external struggle. There is a pathos involved; it makes us feel empty, or perhaps a nicer term would be ‘relaxed’. I love it.
I hear echoes of The Velvet Underground in tunes like ‘Challenger’, with that distorted bass line and organ sound carrying reluctantly hollered vocals. Despite the brevity of some of the 24 tracks on this album, there is a lot to sink your teeth into: a big ol’ bunch of interesting sonic moments throughout, some exceptional chorus melodies and great lyrics.
In summary: this band uses wah-wah pedals on their guitars, and nothing has ever sounded bad through a wah-wah pedal. Nothing. Ever.
Artists you need to know rn
| 1. 1300 |  |
316 |
| 2. Voidhood | |
259 | 3. jamesjamesjames | |
186 | 4. Zan | |
174 |
| 5. Sesame Girl | |
147 |
