Three bands I’ve been listening to recently have been pushing 80s and 90s nostalgia buttons for me.  Don’t get me wrong - I’m thoroughly enjoying each of these albums on their own merits, but I just can’t shake the similarities I hear between them and other artists.  Anyway, consider that a preface to these short takes on The Airborne Toxic Event, Metric and Tullycraft.  Because I didn’t have any particular reason to order these three one way or another, I’ll just go with vaguely chronological based on who they remind me of.

The Airborne Toxic Event

These guys have been getting notoreity lately for their song Sometime Around Midnight.  It’s a good single - hummable and compulsively listenable.  It also sounds to me like Echo and the Bunnymen.  Something in Mikel Jollet’s voice makes me think I’m listening to Ian McCulloch (except about halfway through Sometime Around Midnight when Jollet is suddenly channeling David Bowie circa Heroes).  Still, the bottom line is that there are a number of tracks on this album that could nestle comfortably on the Pretty In Pink soundtrack.  Don’t get me wrong — as far as I’m concerned this is a good thing.  Another song, Something New, is propelled by a vaguely reminiscent 80s pop-ska beat and jangly guitar.  On first listen, it became one of my favorite tracks on the album.  (OK, I could also compare this band to The Killers, who got painted with the 80s throwback brush when Hot Fuss came out, but maybe I’ll leave that for another post.)  Just one more song to mention.  Take a listen to Does This Mean You’re Moving On?  If you like that one, buy the album.  It’s that simple.

Metric

Lead singer Emily Haines is the driving force for this highly enjoyable indie pop band.  The new album, Fantasies, is hooky as hell.  Oh yeah, and Haines sounds a lot like Tanya Donnely (or maybe Juliana Hatfield).  (As a completely unrelated aside, Donnely and Hatfield joined forces on a cover of the Josie and the Pussycats theme song that I’d recommend to anyone who was parked in front of the TV watching cartoons on Saturday mornings in the 80s.)  Most of these songs could have been outtakes from any moment in Donnely’s career from Throwing Muses to Belly to her solo stuff.  Let’s start upbeat — Gold Guns Girls makes me want to dance and I don’t dance.  Front Row gets a little more of its grunge on with some fuzzed out guitars and could have been a follow up single to Belly’s Feed the Tree (or even a track from Donnelly’s other band, The Breeders).  OK, I know, bands don’t really want to be constantly compared to someone else, right?  I’m sure Metric wants it’s own identity.  Fine.  Listen to Help, I’m Alive — another solid song from the album.  That’s their identity in my mind, and I like it.  (Even though it does sound a bit like a Juliana Hatfield Three song off the Reality Bites soundtrack — 0ops, sorry.)

Tullycraft

More than any other band I’ve picked up recently, Tullycraft makes me wonder why some bands hit it huge and others wallow in obscurity.  Seriously.  There is no reason in my mind why Tullycraft did not have a mega-moment in the sun like Blink-182.  Maybe they missed that mid-90s pop punk wave when Blink and all those other knock-offs took to the charts.  Actually, Tullycraft has been around since 1995.  I didn’t hear about them until their 2008 album, Every Scene Needs a Center, which is one of the most listenable albums I own.  OK, I suppose that a band with song titles like Fangs On Bats and Dracula Screams of Tiger Style might have a little trouble elbowing into the mainstream.  Never mind.  Stop reading this now.  Go find Bored To Hear Your Heart Still Breaks.  Listen to it.  Then come back and try and convince me that that’s not as catchy as anything else you’ve heard today.  Really.  I mean it.  Go.  Now.