Description
Like the millennial squishing of dumb rock into diamonds that eventually adorn dames’ fingers, it’s the geezers—intimate with dreams crushed by the hard knox of indifference—who’re truly capable of squeezing out acerbic pop gems that burn hot. They know. SCUPPER’s MIKE JANSON licked gold encrusted sushi bowls with the darlings of alt rock supremacy during his time with LYNNFIELD PIONEERS. They issued two weirdly great long players on Matador in the mid ’90s, only to have their ruins smote upon the mountainside of pop culture refuse. No less an aficionado of such things as Aging Baldini at Fuckin’ Record Reviews hailed Janson as “the Goffin/King of basement power bomp.” Janson’s since fleshed out his new blood vision with bassist ANDREW SHUMWAY (defected from the Jersey City suburban basement Lizzy/Priest smoke out collective A?SS, where he traded u?mlauty riffs with The Mad Scene’s Brian Turner and former Crucifucks drummer Steve Shelley) and drummer RICHARD AMARI, who brings a level of combustible professionalism with which indie rockers are too often unfamiliar. Together, they’re as sharp and tight as a giant burning orb stuffed inside the velvet balcony at Radio City.
Based on the youthful energy bouncing off all corners of “Everything,” Scupper haven’t lost a step in the downtime. Both “Everything” and its flip, “Drown Me Out,” nail the kind of surging, harmony-laden melodic punk that Superchunk used to specialize in. But Scupper’s newest single is no mere nostalgia trip—these songs are flesh and blood and standing right in front of you.
