Semi Trucks return fully cranked with a second album that expands the lo-fi jangle of their debut into something considerably more muscular and arms aloft. Comparisons to the Pastels and Beat Happening are still fair, but the overall presentation speaks to a band with recalibrated ambition, not least on the re-recorded version of 'Motorbike Shining Star', a song that originally appeared on 2021's Vs. California that's now been given the full studio treatment, as if to say 'this is how we're meant to sound'. If those indiepop touchstones are still relevant, then so are SST-era Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr, which is not something I'd have said of their earlier work. The amped up production is also matched with overdrive guitars (that'll be where the title comes from), the winding and wired kind that I've rarely heard done so convincingly since Milk Music called it a day. Marry that with Brendan Sepe's cool guy vocals (and he's not the only singer here btw) and you've the sense of a band taking a big swing for the fences. No hiding in the lo-fi murk - there's songs to be sung here. Let 'em testify or let 'em die!
FFO: Spacemen 3, Dinosaur Jr, The Pastels, Sonic Youth, Milk Music
Semi Trucks - Georgia Overdrive
£23.00
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