The superb new record from D.C. band Saturday Night, called, appropriately-enough, Saturday Night, out on Gentle Reminder, is a joy. It is the sort of brief, seamlessly fun release that makes a listener feel a blast of youthful energy virtually leap out of the headphones.
Now, while some of this -- namely "Fish in the Pond", or "$400" -- sounds like Ex Hex stuff, or even Priests, lots more -- the bright "Curse or Blessing", or the simple "Iceberg Baby" -- echoes offerings from the C86 generation, and even those in this area who once took their inspiration from that stuff too (I'm thinking early Velocity Girl or Unrest here). The four players in this group -- Luke Reddick, Nora Button, Cash Langdon, and Jesse Sattler -- have been involved with other projects in D.C. but this feels like the vehicle that's going to (hopefully) get a lot of attention drawn the musicians' way. If "Picking Up Glass" made me think of Kissing is a Crime, and "Push Pull" pointed my mind towards recent offerings from The Spook School, that's the highest compliment I could add in this review.
And while lots of this brief record feels familiar, there's so much here in the way the pieces are put together that make this wildly likable and infectious. Saturday Night by Saturday Night is out on Friday via Gentle Reminder Records.
[Photo: Sami Cola]