The new album from Chime School is here this week on Slumberland Records. It's wonderful. I could end the review The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel by just saying that. Still, what bears some attention is just how good this, and how it pushes forward the styles that this imprint has been famous for championing for more than 30 years.
When he's not busy in Seablite, Andy Pastalniec leads Chime School. And while he contributed to the superb shoegaze of that other band, here, in his own project, he's after jangle-pop pleasures. Things begin with "The End", a Teenage Fanclub-in-their-Britpop-phase ramble, even as the more boisterous "Why Don't You Come Out Tonight?" has a trace of The Replacements in its hook, even as its style is closer to that of C86 bands. The Biff Bang Pow-ish "Give Your Heart Away" is achingly perfect in its pop forms, as is the big and bright "Wandering Song", a real highlight of both this album and this year's single releases.
What Andy Pastalniec does so well is blend some obvious influences into something clever that is memorable on its own terms. The smartly-titled "(I Hate) The Summer Sun", for example, manages to reference that famous early Chris Stamey (The dB's) single, while sounding a bit like Velvet Crush. Similarly, there's more than a little early Oasis in closer "Points of Light", but the cut manages to reveal that Pastalniec's brand of pop doesn't always need chiming guitars to find a sweet spot for an appreciative listener.
There's no misstep here on The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel. Chime School have built upon the foundation that the Slumberland Records label has so carefully cultivated for three decades, and done it in a naturally intuitive fashion. There's so much here that's in debt to those earlier indie pioneers on this imprint, yeah, but this one really could be a contender for an All-Time Best of Slumberland list. It is just that awesomely good!
The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel by Chime School is out on August 23 via Slumberland Records. Details via the Bandcamp link below.
[Photo: Chime School press photo]