So Far From Sane

Charly Bliss “Urge to Purge”

It’s such a thrill to see a rock band arrive seemingly fully formed. I saw Charly Bliss open up for Colleen Green and Unrest at Shea Stadium in Brooklyn on Friday night, and I’m glad I arrived early, because they were a far better live act than either. (Green is excellent on record, but not quite as much when she’s only got a guitar and a drum machine.) Charly Bliss are a straight-up ‘90s alt-rock band, and you can easily just listen to their stuff and trainspot all their influences – that melody is The Breeders, that bass line is Pixies, that bit sounds like that one Bush song, that hook is Letters to Cleo, a whole bunch of it is Veruca Salt. There was even one song that somehow made the leap from Built to Spill to No Doubt in the space of a few measures. They’ve got the sound down, and I won’t lie – this isn’t just nostalgia for me, it’s full-on Pavlonian. I am a sucker for this very specific type of rock music. But there’s been a few bands aiming for this over the past few years, and none of them have connected with the sound and the spirit of alt-rock as much as this band. It’s not just in the shape of the music, it’s in the way they move on stage, and the way they play and sing and interact. Great alt-rock music always moves between slack and tension, a shrug and a shout. Despite all the angst, there’s a lot of joy in alt-rock – it’s very physical music, and it’s all about taking great pleasure in dynamic shifts. Charly Bliss gets it, and they do it. I’m excited for what they’re going to do next.

Buy it from Bandcamp.