I wouldn’t say that The Iddy-Biddies is a band stuck in the past. I would say that they are a band that has learned from it. There is something ornate and intricate fused into their signature brand of indie-pop, the sound of music more finessed than it needs to be, songs that feel like they deliver more than is required of them, and that all adds a tremendous sense of artistic value. Pop smarts meets Americana anthemics, perhaps.
Listen to “Mr. September,” for example, and you hear all manner of guitar motifs that dance deftly through, often fleeting, always fantastic, clever touches and effective half-riffs that others would fashion into a half-album of songs, here used as gorgeous yet sparing window dressing. And by the time the subtle solo arrives, a trumpet no less, you know this is a band apart from everything other singer-songwriter-based sonic posses have to offer.
“Follow You Anywhere” feels like the killer solo single that Tom Petty never got around to writing; the title track has that Paisley Underground-filtered sense of the sixties at its core, and “Fortunate Sons” is crisp, and chiming, clear-headed, and *CSN&Y*-infused.
There is nothing retrospective or nostalgic about The World Inside, at least not intentionally, but there is a sophistication and subtlety running through it that you rarely get from today’s bands. Music that feels as if you have heard it before, yet still refreshing, familiar, but which evokes the same feeling of excitement as the best new music must. If that isn’t the definition of a classic album, at least one that will, given time, someday attain such a title, I don’t know what is.
Website
Soundcloud
Bandcamp
Youtube
Instagram
