The new record from the Australian band Possible Humans will likely appeal to anyone who's already a fan of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, yes, but it will also have lots to offer to fans of Pavement and Yatsura too. And what I mean by that is that the tunes on the group's newest record, Everybody Split, out Friday on Trouble in Mind Records, are angular and wire-y like those of those mentioned bands. This group is relatively new but they've got great taste if one goes just by what they sound like.
"Lung of the City" is elegant and catchy, like something from any number of bands on the Flying Nun label, while the wonderfully-titled "Aspiring to Be a Bloke" adds in a dash of Yank acts like Beat Happening and The Grifters to the mix. Elsewhere, "The Thumps" and "Absent Swimmer" churn with the sort of ramshackle charm that any number of early Malkmus-penned tunes had, while the excellent "Stinger" feels like The Clean ripping apart a b-side from The Fall. This is, for the most part, bristly pop here on Everybody Split, while the epic-length "Born Stoned" suggests another path for this band, one that involves much longer explorations of slacker rock forms. An album that feels entirely familiar and still fresh, Everybody Split is the sort of thing that is brimming with echoes of acts from the college rock boom of the post-Cobain years. And I say that as high praise indeed, 'cause fans of anything that's called indie are likely to find lots and lots of this super-enjoyable.
Everybody Split is out on Friday via Trouble in Mind Records.
More details on Possible Humans via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Melissa Fulton]