Lots of good rock comes out of the whole “suburban youthful malaise” thing, and one of our recent Artist of the Month winners Paperback brings a damn good entry into that subgenre of indie with their hard guitar album Nervous Energy. It’s a bit Weezer in the subjects and guitar, a bit Sparta in the energy and structure, a bit Neutral Milk Hotel in the vocals, a taste of Pixies artiness and a whole lot of good indie rock fun overall. The tracks are often about relationships, but in that post-pomo, beyond cynicism and nihilism space where there’s a mature and thoughtful tiredness that you often get in that 90s/2000s era in indie that Paperback builds on. The songs are about just trying to scrape out a good relationship in a tiring, weird reality, and they do a fine job of it with ballsy-honest looks at romance and the world it tries to live in, an approach that isn’t hurt one bit by this band’s aptitude for vivid imagery and description. The suburban anthem-loving crowd is sure to dig Paperback’s newest output here, as is anyone with a thing for oldschool indie that really does rock. Track “Cat” is a real standout of “Teenage Dirtbag”-esque angsty awesome, so make sure to give that a listen below y’all, and let the fuzzy, screaming guitar and slacker lyricism back into your indie rock.
