A little bit Jay Som, a little bit Palehound…
[Video]
[6.83]
John S. Quinn-Puerta: Very little lightning struck me this year, musically speaking. Where past years have had albums and songs that I’ve listened to on repeat from the moment they arrived, for me, this was a year for sleeper hits. It was months after its release that I’d realized how much time I’d spent listening to Doomin’ Sun. And now, nearly 10 months after the release of their debut single, I’m astonished it didn’t strike me from the start. “Anything At All” is filled with a tension that was sorely lacking in much of what I listened to in 2021. The perfectly staccato bass ratchets that tension throughout, with occasional slack released as the choruses hit, with the guitars tempting it, begging it to let loose. The unison of Jay Som and Palehound’s vocals drives it home even further, as the intentionality of the arrangement stays aligned. The first hint of chaos comes at the end of the first chorus, with the chromatic walkdown going on just a second too long. It fully unleashes at the end of the second chorus as the full, lush soundscape that could only come from Jay Som takes over. They shouldn’t say anything at all, and yet the sound yells everything for them.
[9]
Tim de Reuse: A lumbering bassline and a saccharine melody gradually bend and eventually buckle under a prickly, sun-washed mass of guitar and synth. I’m normally on team anti-reverb, but there is a solidity to the sound design of the climax that places it a great distance from most common species of dream-pop: grimy, tangled, full of details that spike through the mix. Part of me wishes it developed a little more, but there is a confidence in how it skids to a halt once it’s shown off what it wants to do.
[7]
Andrew Karpan: A languorous jam-out built with slacker walls, but pure pop on the inside; there’s been so many varieties of ’90s revival lately that it’s easy to forget that copying the Pixies was once an essential part of what American indie rock sounded like. At their best moments, the tender sandpaper voices of longtime vets Melina Duterte and Ellen Kempner reach girl-group harmonies that become even prettier when they shimmer away in a fuzz-out that adds a certain genre coherency to the project.
[7]
Ian Mathers: There’s a bit at the end where it sounds like the shitty old Weedwhacker I used to have to use on my dad’s (at the time) two-tiered backyard for the places the lawn mower couldn’t reach, but specifically that Weedwhacker whenever I’d have to pull out more of the plastic string and then the guard would chop it back down to size. That part rules so much it made me go back to see what I’d missed in the earlier parts of the song, and maybe it just benefits from my newer perception of it as a slowly ratcheting up build to the Weedwhacker part, but I still like it.
[7]
Iain Mew: The way the guitar scratches and then digs in deep is cool. But when the rest of the song skates across so easily as to leave no mark at all, even the success is a bit frustrating.
[4]
Juana Giaimo: The rawness of the guitar is well complemented by that very precise bass, while the vocals remain quiet — even fearful if we take into account the lyrics. The guitar distortion instrumental part, it’s so powerful that it swallows everything behind, leaving a feeling of emptiness when the beat and bass appear in the last seconds.
[7]