RECORD REVIEW: Pearly*, Post Key BCP (single) (2024)

 

RECORD REVIEW: Pearly*, Post Key BCP (single) (2024)

did you miss me yet? 

i’ve had to cut back the last two weeks for personal reasons that had me travelling out of wellington, leading to me not having the time to write much of anything, really, and causing me to miss out on two of the gigs i was looking forward to the most (the Mudgoose eyegum wednesday and the not one, but two Feshh shows.) another gig i happened to miss out on was the Pearly* show at cuba dupa. all day i had been running into various tastemakers telling me that this was the band to see, but i got distracted and ended up elsewhere during their set, only walking by as people were leaving.

as a critic i love to eavesdrop on post gig chatter because it gives you such a raw view into people’s thoughts on an act. the whole concert you’re collecting observations and you finally let them all out at once in a storm of opinion, and, getting caught in the crowd leaving Pearly*, i could only hear good things, so i came into this single with high expectations, which could have been a mistake. they’re from dunedin, which explains why i haven’t really heard of them before. they play an odd kind of shoegaze-grunge alternative rock falling somewhere between the wellington noise pop sound and a kind of early 2000’s downtown new york indie sleaze type thing. it’s an interesting mixture that i don’t see anyone else doing.

this is the 4th entry in the Pearly* discography, but i’m counting it as the second because the first two were demo releases and i’m desperately trying to discourage that practice (if you aren’t proud of it, don’t release it, and if you like it, don’t call it a demo to deflect criticism). i think listening to this release it’s clear that the sound they’re aiming for isn’t entirely developed. if you’re interested in this band, i’m going to advise you to maybe wait for the next single before you make any judgments based on this one.  

i did really enjoy the actual music here, however. a great drummer (on loan from Koizilla) combined with some new R’n’R guitar crunch and white hot bass which is very heavy like ultra. i don’t hear it on their other tracks, but for this song they’re evoking a strange kind of middle/late period Sonic Youth. there’s some good noise textures towards the end that tell me this band has ambitions to be a lot artier then the straighter sounding indie rock of their last release, but these kinds of changes in ambition take time to develop, and the end result comes off somewhat half cocked.    

as instrumentalists they’re more then capable of pulling off a compelling performance, which comes across on record, but i’m not entirely charmed by the vocal delivery, which strikes me as self effacing and unsure in a way that isn’t exactly flattering. i can pick the various reference points the band has for their sound but i’m having trouble recognizing, exactly, what’s providing the inspiration for the members themselves, and their choices in arrangement. for every idea that works, i feel like there’s an idea on here that doesn’t.

if this is the best the south can offer i’m not surprised wellington has the monopoly on this sound, but as it stands it’s a competent, if not derivative entry in the emerging scene. listening to their back catalogue tells me they’re capable of more. and, while i’m not going to dock points for it, i am slightly bitter, Pearly*, for making my job harder by only having a limited number of free plays on bandcamp before you hit me up for money.

final score: *** and a half/5