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Rock and roll may have found its ideal form many moons ago, but that doesn’t mean that artists aren’t free to test the demarcations of this or any genre. In fact, the world is a better place when they do. And, after all, a song or sound only falls into one genre or another due to public consensus. In other words, rock and roll is what we say it is.
So, whilst Maisy’s Rainbow Dream is most assuredly rock music, it is rock music that pushes at those boundaries, jumps those boundaries, and leaves those boundaries slowly vanishing in the rearview mirror. In doing so, they are free to pick up whatever sonic shiny things they take a fancy to on the other side of the dividing line, and it is these infusions and inclusions, ideas and influences, that make their new EP, New Past Times, a bit special.
The first of this sonic triptych, “Puddles of Madness,” runs on a glorious and relentless, low-slung groove, over which guitars chop and chime, a heavenly blend of scuzzy alt-rock and almost 50’s surf rock twangs, punky abrasiveness and darker sonic intent. “Cool Kids” is loose and languid, a lilting take on indie-rock, only roughed up and smothered in great harmonies, and “Alone” is the band taking the much-reviled power ballad format and dragging it kicking and screaming through a warped, college rock filter into a much more credible new future.
It’s rock, Jim, but not as we know it. No, it’s better.
