Media

Harlem: "Gay Human Bones" (MP3)

1:25 p.m. · March 10, 2010 · by JJ Mack

No, lo-fi garage rock will not go away. The past decade has shown a marked proclivity for championing a subgenre renaissance and abandoning it two months later, but unlike some of your more-style-than-substance fads (read: chillwave), garage rock is ever simmering beneath the mainstream surface. It may break through from time to time, but in the intervening periods it subsists and thrives on little more than songwriting chops and booze-fueled good times. 

There are few things I love more than a catchy rock 'n' roll tune, and few tracks this year have been more addictive than Harlem's "Friendly Ghost." While "Gay Human Bones," the latest cut made available from the band's Matador debut, Hippies, doesn't quite reach the indelible heights of "Friendly Ghost," it does nicely showcase the band's cheeky humor and boasts a chorus perfect for barroom sing-alongs. I can't complain about handclaps and loopy backward guitar, but a go-nowhere melody can't boost the relatively rote chord progression in the verse. It's a problem that bedevils most of the weaker tracks on Hippies, but as "Gay Human Bones" demonstrates, that's more indicative of how good most of the album's songs are than anything else.

Hippies is out April 6, 2010 on Matador. Download "Gay Human Bones" from Matador here.