Pop Mutations presents:
Hurry + U.S. Highball
+ Gerry Love
Saturday 23rd March
The Glad Cafe
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Hurry:
Hurry were formed in Philadelphia PA by Matt Scottoline in 2012. Their fifth album - and fourth for Lame-O Records was released in Summer of 2023. "Don’t Look Back" takes cues from all the usual suspects—a Pitchfork review of the band’s 2016 LP Guided Meditation compared Scottoline’s songs to Matthew Sweet and the Posies, and those comparisons still make sense this time around. Tambourine is employed liberally; the record takes its title from a song by Teenage Fanclub (“Don’t Look Back” off 1995’s Grand Prix), who famously named one of their records after a Big Star song (with 1993’s Thirteen).
Founding member Matt Scottoline has grafted the best qualities of ‘90s bubblegum power pop—the pitch-perfect songwriting, the pop-rock sheen, the borderline saccharine vocal melodies—onto something far more raw and emotionally resonant.
On one hand, Don’t Look Back is an ironic title: These songs are about reflecting on failed romance from a more mature emotional vantage point. But as both a title and collection of songs, Don’t Look Back is also a self-affirmation of sorts—to learn from the past without being mired in it, to stay focused on the present, to feel hopeful for the future. You couldn’t come up with a better analogy for power pop if you tried.”
U.S. Highball:
No Thievery, Just Cool - released in Spring 2023 on Lame-O Records - is the fourth album in as many years from Glaswegian jangle-pop outfit U.S. Highball, comprised of lifelong friends Calvin Halliday and James Hindle.
This time around, the boys decided to put the neighbourhood to work, enlisting a host of friends and external collaborators to beef up their characteristically propulsive pop nuggets. Jacob Ewald--frontman of recent tourmates Slaughter Beach, Dog--duets with James on a soaring version of The Mr. T Experience’s "Big, Strange, Beautiful Hammer," and Manda Rin--one third of Glasgow indie legends Bis--lends her trademark emphatic yelp to the effervescent "Tiny Partick." On album closer "Out of Time," Aussie stalwarts Darren Hanlon and Shelley Short provide sun-soaked harmonies that elevate the song’s ruminative coda to something transcendent, while Joe Howe--typically known to traffic in jittery electronics--unleashes a rousing saxophone solo slap-bang in the middle of "Paris 2019." The record was masterfully mixed by Melbourne-based legend-in-the-making Snowy--best known for his work with The Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch--whose ardent ear for detail helped breath fresh life into the songs during the mixing process, bringing out the best in Halliday and Hindle’s unorthodox arrangements.