Consumer Guide Album

Rolling Blackouts C.F.: Hope Downs [Sub Pop, 2018]
What's most distinct about the best jangle-pop band to surface in years is also what's weakest--the way the jangle-pop commonplaces "sparkling," "effervescent," and "boisterous" that adorn their raves don't actually apply. "Addictive," yes, which is why admirers rave and why I'm giving them their due. Lyrically, the mood is basically melancholy, which in songs like the mournful "Bellarine," the reminiscent "Cappuccino City," the pro-immigrant "Mainland," and my favorite, the love-out-of-reach "Talking Straight" are dark notes I'm inclined to suspect their stauncher fans don't feel, because that would dull their jangle-fix. FYI, the Hope Downs of the title is an iron reserve in Western Australia, but those words do have other resonances, don't they? Sub Pop connects them to "the feeling of 'standing at the edge of the void of the big unknown, and finding something to hold onto.'" The persistence of jangle-pop, for instance. B+