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If, when you think of the golden age of indie, you conjure in your mind a sort of effervescent, upbeat and infectious, immediate and accessible strain of hook-laden, guitar-fuelled music, something that seems to sit between the pop-aware and the rock-driven, then you are going to love Roscoe Tripp.
Right from the off, with the titular opener, all of those elements come into play almost immediately, although Roscoe Tripp is smart enough to realize that it isn’t enough to just give us the sonic equivalent of an undignified rush to the finish and create a brilliant dynamic via an ebb and flow between the incendiary and the understated.
“When The Stalks Are Low – The People’s Version” employs some darker, more post-punk grooves in the verses to balance its upbeat chorus, snarling riffs dancing in unison with euphoric and uplifting voices. “Cut Self Not” takes Faraquet’s ornate classic to even further ends of the sonic spectrum, wandering some mercurial ways, taking in alt-rock salvos, indie slashes, vocals that move between punk incendiary and drifting deftness, and there is even some room for mathy, almost proggy guitar interludes. What do you give the discerning music fan who claims to have heard everything? A copy of “Cut Self Not,” that’s what.
Things end on Radiohead’s “Just,” blending folk finesse with shimmering indie soundscapes. It captures all the same sonic moods and modes but still finds a new take on its strange brilliance.
The fact that Roscoe Tripp elects to cover two of the toughest calls in the rock and roll canon, pulls them off with aplomb (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a review), and offers us compositions that seem to suggest their own future classic status, is exactly why you need to keep your eyes fixed firmly on this band.
