Lobby Boys - Changes
(2016 Nervi Cani)
Equally as post-impressionist as they are post-punk, Italy's Lobby Boys smear their canvas of reverb with pointillist riffs and nebulous splashes of feedback bathed in fauvist radiance. Frontman Omar Aleotti is incredibly gifted at weaving nubbly neo-c86 textures that recall early 2010s acts like The Vivian Girls and The Art Museums - tinny drum machines take needle-like jabs at sheets of woolen chords dotted by sparkling twangs of lead guitar. "Changes" exchanges Aleotti's cirrus wisps of distorted vocals for a wordless precipitation of melody as benign and cozy as a warm sprinkle of rain. "Emily" is the muggy evaporation of this summer shower, a gloom-addled wall of billowing fuzz hovering above an off-kilter beat. Changes is a pleasant return to the nu-gaze formlessness of Wavves and Beach Fossils that's worth a late night spin.
