Michigan-based duo Sideria released their self-tired debut LP at the end of last year – and you can order it on Bandcamp here. The rercord, inspired by bands including Hop Along and Algernon Cadwallader, will be on streaming services from 20 March.
Opening with a distorted confusion of riffs and drums on the Cap’n Jazz-esque ‘Going the Distance’ (which clocks in at just over a minute), the album soon moves into the more traditional emo sound of ‘Malcolm & Tina’. The hooks are melodic and the lyrics verge from emotional – ‘I swear your feet taps with impatience with my eyes stuck to the ground – to wryly humorous: ‘Dressed like Malcolm. No, not the middle one’. ‘Magic Flip’ takes the record in an Into It. Over It. direction as the duo declare ‘Fuck the trip and fuck the pigs’ while also considering their place in society: ‘In my head I’m your fiend and you know where I’ve been all along’.
‘Knife Girl’ is a more breezy piece of indie pop, although the message about abuse and coercive control is extremely important: ‘Don’t you dare touch me’; ‘I don’t care what you think of me, I’m not your puzzle piece’. The sparse storytelling of the acoustic version of ‘Toby Told Me’ (there’s a bonus plugged-in version, too) slows things down before ‘Wormhole’ finds the band gently hinting at a prog direction before settling into a fragile dream pop space: ‘Just forget it, I don’t want to regret it’. After an opening shout of ‘AHHHHH’, ‘County Fair’ takes in the both ‘painfully familiar’ and alien nature of returning to somewhere you once felt you belonged: ‘Too many faces, too many places, too many places to occupy’.
This is a short and sharp record with plenty to say about the world today.
