It seems like every band these days is related to five million other bands, and Love Interest are no different, hailing from the incestuous musical underground of Olympia, WA, and sporting members from schizoid hardcore bands GAG and White Wards as well as dark post-punkers Soft Kill. You wouldn’t guess it though, as their sound is wholly their own and seems to emanate from an entirely different time and place.
Opener ‘Narco’ is a perfect little slice of brooding fuzz pop, aching heart vocals moaning over melodic bass, spectral synthesisers and yearning guitar lines in a track that splits the difference between eighties Euro-cold wavers Asylum Party and the ethereal mess of early Weekend. It’s a melancholy earworm of a track that makes you wish John Hughes was still alive and making teen movies. Listening to it immediately spawns involuntary but welcome visions of Phoebe Cates in the Sherman Oaks Galleria food court. I can definitely picture this song being played at a pastel pink high school dance in a town that doesn’t exist.
Second track ‘Circle The Drain’ ignites decidedly less enjoyable mental images of the cold tiles and bathroom floors that inevitably follow such a scene. An absolute about-face from its predecessor, ‘Circle The Drain’ is a narcoleptic dirge of a Swans tribute full of groaning bass, piercing screwdriver leads and an ace Michael Gira impression that somehow manages to not sound out of place following the previous track’s wistful pop. Just imagine the singer from the new wave band playing at the school dance in track one O.D.-ing on the floor of the gym bathroom.
Final track ‘How It Hurts To Outgrow’ is the true gem here, marrying both of Love Interest’s personalities – the pop star and the seedy public bathroom junkie – perfectly in an upbeat, melodic track full of haunting horror synths and ghost guitar reverb.
This demo is suitably scuzzy, and the lo-fi production suits the music perfectly, casting an eerie and nostalgic shimmer over the whole affair, but at the same time I really hope these guys make it big because I have the strange urge to want to hear their version of a massive, sell-out, over-produced pop record.
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