White Dove is the latest EP from LA indie pop trio Tangerine, comprised of sisters Marika and Miro Justad, and Tobias Kuhn. The video and single for “Local Mall” captures the group at their best, doing what they do visually and aurally to the umpteenth degree. These three are unmistakably obsessed with nostalgia and delivering that feeling via the sunniest, most shoegaze-lite angles possible. It’s a song about hanging out in all its forms: drifting, driving, smoking in driveways, et al. Any millennial can tell you how easy it is to be kicked out of the mall by some rent-a-cop just for not being an adult, and that juvenile beauty finds blissful placement in the refrain, “Feel like the dogs are closing in at the local mall again.” Writing about salad days and zipper blues is near impossible anymore without sounding hackneyed or becoming increasingly contextual, but the saving grace here is its anthemic quality. They unleash that magic reserved for other poppy hip-shakers like The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition,” showering mundanity in a brilliant shimmer.
Sonically and narratively, they follow the same agenda as bands like Electric Youth and Summer Camp. There are some nice stylistic shifts in production on “Lake City,” wherein the second verse loses the drippy reverb and the guitars grow less clamorous, retaining the snap of a Buddy Holly tune. It’s a brief departure that keeps things interesting, and even a neat bass line flourish in the song’s middle suggests a brighter aptitude for instrumentation and arrangement than their predecessors.
This fondness for remembrance stands front and center on “Cherry Red”. There’s a lot of “we used to” and other past tense prompts, including a reference to Velvet Goldmine — a film made in tribute to the glam rock era. That’s… exponentially nostalgic! “Monster of the Week” is another languorous reminiscence, boasting the—at this point—predictable refrain, “Wasting our time in Verona Beach.” At any given time, the guitars bear the pasted attributes from Disintegration and the lyrics read like a computer’s automated script after listening to synth pop for a week. Tangerine are young, which is both a boon and detriment to their constant waxing halcyon. Isn’t nostalgia to a young adult just a yearning to not getting older? They’re more than competent, but well-grounded in the naïveté of mistaking sweet yesteryear for an identity. Odds are they’ll learn. So for now, stay up past your bedtime, stare up at the ceiling, and disappear into your headphones with “Local Mall” on repeat.
