Consumer Guide Album

The Trypes: Music for Neighbors [Pravda, 2022]
The Trypes comprise or comprised all of North Jersey's drone-prone, tune-averse, postpunk, initially propulsive Feelies, who early in their sporadic career would both debut on punk-adjacent Stiff and hook up in more ways than one with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. For extra collegiality they add on a bunch of the Feelies' North Jersey friends, including two crucial female vocalist-instrumentalists. So say they were conceived for fans of classic Feelies (whose bland, belated 2011 and 2017 albums, I'd best note, are dull dull dull)--and that naturally they drone too. Laid down live and at home as well as in the studio, the 16 tracks on the CD I somehow kept playing constitute what can pass for their entire recorded oeuvre. Except for two songs unveiled at a 2017 reunion, all date back to the '80s, and beyond one Patti Smith cover and two George Harrison covers all are originals. They may not catch your ear immediately, or in the case of the six-minute "Friends" ever. But if reading this has sent you back to early Feelies records that sound fresh all over again, the Trypes are officially waiting to give your ears an extra twist. B+