Album Reviews

Canadian trio The Allovers, made up of guitarist Matt Pahl, bassist Paul Arnusch (The Wet Secrets, Faunts, The Whitsundays) and drummer Garrett Kruger (Fire Next Time), have been around since 2011 and have only now gotten round to releasing their debut album via Ryan Young’s Anxious & Angry Records.

‘Yer Guises’ comes with a whopping fifteen songs’ worth of deliciously crunchy riffs, big hooks and the kind of crooned vocals that have gone out of style since the late 50ies. Their garage-y pop-punk sounds in combination with the crooned vocals make for a pretty original sound. A sound they work particularly well on songs like the ridiculously catchy and – weirdly enough kind of menacing - ‘When Freddy’s Back In Town’, ‘Kitty Cat Girl’ and the Ramonesque ‘Rinkydink’, a song written from the perspective of a breaking down lawnmower as a comment on the cheapening of the modern world.

If you want to get really critical, things do sound kind of same-y after a while. But that doesn’t really take away from the fact that there is plenty of fun to be had with ‘Yer Guises,’ one of the most surprising and original albums I’ve heard in quite some time.

Track listing:

1. Blue Kangaroo
2. Rinky Dink
3. Tub Time
4. Dog Team Cooperation
5. When Freddy's Back in Town
6. Hitchcock Twist
7. Happy Pop
8. Kitty Cat Girl
9. Gooby
10. Honey Gets Me Flies
11. Get Serios
12. Hey Joey
13. Sugar Shed
14. I Remember Beaver Lumber
15. Allovers' Theme