Best of 2020
Melbourne's The Stroppies latest arrives as the perfect accompaniment to the Reds, Pinks and Purples 7" we posted about last week. Which is to say, more witty, acerbic jangle pop magic par excellence. What's particularly great about this eight song mini-LP is that it strikes a balance between the rough-edged charm of their early home recordings and the studio polish (relatively speaking of course) of their debut album from last year. Like the term 'indie' before it, 'lo-fi' has become mostly meaningless as a catch-all for any music with guitars, but as an aesthetic value (and ideology!), i think it's still pretty valid, and Stroppies make good on its promise here, all sideways guitar lines, earworm melodies and organ buzz wrapped in a sheen of wonk and hiss. That's the spirit, that's the feeling! Regardless of whatever else is going on in the world, someone somewhere is always making music like this, keeping the flame alive, the subculture of the romantic disaffected! Indiepop will never die...
