24th
The Pernice Brothers have been delivering sweetly unassuming albums bathed in affectionate love songs, literate lyrics, and jangly guitars for nearly fifteen years. With references indebted to Todd Rundgren and B.S. Johnson, in equal measure, they are the musical equivalent of Nick Hornby. It’s only appropriate that even Hornby himself is a fan.
Still, for all the intellectual affectations - and wordplay veering between the achingly sincere and the brutishly cynical - it should be noted that the songs are never a chore. They come in three minute pop bursts, dreamy and lush and propulsive.
Their new single, “Jacqueline Susann”, gives the eponymous trash author the same reverence as Ford Madox Ford. It’s a beautiful juxtaposition of well-read paperbacks and obsessive crushes, both intellectual and romantic. Between this and the upcoming Hold Steady album, it’s a very rewarding time to be a fan of brainy, brash, rock and roll. Both bands share a similar sentiment, The Hold Steady just do it with rougher edges. “We Can Get Together” is a love song on the new Hold Steady album. It’s about the tiny, quiet moments shared between two lovers in a bedroom. Not sexual, but equally intimate, as they play records by Husker Du, Pavement, Heavenly, and The Psychedelic Furs. Emotional synapses and unbreakable connections formed by songs.
Before singer Craig Finn reaches the refrain, “Heaven is whenever/we can get together/lock your bedroom door/and listen to your records.” he recalls in vague strokes, two anecdotes about Heavenly, a band from Oxford in the early nineties. They sung about “a pure and simple love” and they did it well, wide-eyed, delicate and unapologetic. Fronted by the incomparably beautiful voice of singer Amanda Fletcher, there music wasn’t well known but, like all great bands, embedded a permanent impression on anyone who bothered listening. Their career as a band ended in 1994 when Matthew Fletcher, the bands drummer and lead singer’s younger brother, committed suicide. They never performed as Heavenly again.
“He wasn’t just the drummer/he was the singer’s little brother/I still spin that single/but it doesn’t sound that simple anymore.”
Both songs are about permanent impressions from tenuous connections. Both will be ignored by the majority of modern music consumers. But both will be adored by everyone who takes the time to listen to them.
Download “Jacqueline Susann” and enjoy.
