I’m a sucker for power pop in all it’s forms. Whether its sound projects the image of four or five musicians leaping about emptied garages smelling of stale leaking motor oil or the glitter-like sparkle of pavement reflecting late night bars of an urban downtown, I love it all. Black Spots, Greenville’s duo of Justin Green and Josh McCain (and friends when needed), follow neither of these particular paths in Extended Play, and elect to play a more difficult, overall subtler approach to power pop in that all-too-rare-effort these days to give us something new. And they do it in style.
“Damn Our Eyes” sees the band digging right into it from the first notes. Aside from the opening chords, there’s no intro to speak of nor any indicator that the song is meant to be the album opener. But power pop isn’t a genre that needs expositionary frills, and the more contemplative sound Black Spots employ benefits from it. It’s a building track. A wandering melody led by the guitar work with and a pleasant chorus. It makes for a good first track because it shakes the soda can, promising a more explosive moment later, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with “Hey, look! The album is starting!”
Not failing to deliver, “Imaginary Mary” starts off similarly to “Damn Our Eyes” in a quiet, jaunty manner, but bursts into straight guitar riff-driven power pop as it reaches the chorus. The vocals flawlessly shift from the sing-song conversational nature of the verses to the anthemic feel of the chorus in a fashion that reminds me of power-pop hopefuls, Tsar, mixed with a tiny bit of Weezer in there for good measure. Calling it signature power pop would be unfair to Black Spots, but the garage rock leaning of the song will feel satisfying to fans of the genre. It’s catchy and rockin’, which is exactly what the second track needs to be to complete capturing the attention of the listener.
“All This Time” slows down the pace with an acoustic focused track. It makes me wonder if the duo are fans of Matt Pryor due to the melodic style of the track. While more rocking than The Get Up Kids’ frontman’s solo effort, Confidence Man, Black Spots pull off the same sort of soft pop rock charm that made Pryor’s album so enjoyable. In fact, I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy Black Spots’ style of power pop so much. They take two distinctly different sounds and mesh them together, and while one clearly has more influence, the band pulls it off in such a way that they are able to create a Black Spots sound rather than “Oh, cool. This band sounds like (insert band name here).”
The record picks up again with “Out of Our Heads,” which is my personal favorite on the record. Though the chorus doesn’t have the calling anthem style of “Imarginary Mary,” but I feel it has much more of an impact. It’s a patient track that builds and builds, and just when it needs to, with the delivery of “We’re both rotten to the bone!/Afraid of being alone” slams the infectiousness of the song home. A perfect blend of Black Spots contemplative nature with elements of signature power-pop style.
“One Two” is a bit of a conundrum. Clearly, the band is showing off a more playful approach to their lyrics, and because they don’t carry the cute nursery rhymes far enough to be too distracting, I must confess that hearing “One, two, buckle my shoe,” threw me off the first time I heard it. The song manages to be the quietest thus far for three-fourths of the track, which I think led to my distraction. When a band uses a more lighthearted approach, a faster, hook-induced method is used. The song crescendos into a fantastic breakdown towards the end that delivers on the promise of making serious use of its whimsical lyrics at the beginning.
This isn’t to discourage implementing playful styles in the middle of the record. Black Spots pull it off quite well, and to be able to use a line that sticks out so much without it overshadowing the song needs to be commended, but it did slightly distract the flow of the record for me.
The penultimate “They Were Right” does a great job of setting up the album’s finale, it’s rocking and catchy, but not so much that it overtakes “So Much Black.” This is important due to the fact that the last track is a slower, six minute acoustic piece. While the music is the softest on the record, Black Spots step up the vocal and lyrical efforts in order to create a quiet epic that reverbs in your head as the last note echoes out of the speakers. While an atypical way to end a short power pop record, I can’t help but commend Black Spots’ effort, not only for pulling it off so completely, but doing so in a way that makes you thing “Damn, I’d really love to hear more from these guys.” Ending with the most layered music arrangements and mixing of vocal harmonies just shows how much potential this band has even after delivering this very capable record.
Extended Play is a welcome power pop addition to the Upstate’s music scene; a brand of music I’d love to see more of. For me, the record played much better the second time. More nuances were caught and I feel like a lot of the individual stylistic quirks of the band made themselves known. In some ways, Extended Play serves as a more focused, cogitative answer to the Raincoat Weather EP by Spartanburg’s power pop outfit, Sing Sing 76. Black Spots, without a doubt, have the talent to take their music wherever they want to. Capturing the best elements of rock and pop without letting either take completely over is an extremely difficult thing to do, and I can see this band fully mastering it in no time at all. I just hope they stick around the area for the near future so that we can enjoy them as “ours” a bit while longer.
What’s that? You want to hear the album too? Oh. Well, you could just click here, where you can stream and download Extended Play in its entirety. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.!
