Generally speaking I’m more light than dark. Give me chirpy treble lead guitar over screaming solos every time. But every now and then you can add in some chunky rhythm guitar parts and inch the amps up past 11. As long as there’s a melody buried in there somewhere. Today’s acts get a bit more meaty than our usual fare but don’t stint on the hooks.

A while back Bandcamp Daily ran a feature on power pop and I had covered every act but one – San Jose’s My Life as a Bird. Skipping through their latest LP The Cabana I was immediately drawn to the skipping-along fun-grind of track #2 “Cheers To My Old Friends.” It had just the right mix of dissonant rock intensity and carefree abandon. The influence haunting this record is Weezer, obviously, but in highly original ways. You can hear it in the combination of dread and hookiness on cuts like “Other Worlds” and “Growing Up.” “Ankle Brace” sounds a bit brighter, poppier, like Weezer cut with Sugar Ray. Meanwhile “I Hope You Don’t Hate Me” and “Sadie” both stretch out dissonant drone into more slow and seductive material. For departures, there’s “The Cabana,” a slowly building kind of punk Beach Boys while “Sleeping In” is just adrenaline fueled power pop. Then album closer “Who?” reminds me of the Plain White Ts.

If you went to an Ultra Lights concert it would be like being buffeted by a consistent wall of sound, each song inviting you into a kind of aural mosh pit. Their songs have sonic equivalence that allow them to relate to each other while retaining their own original contribution. Sometime albums are like that, they exude a coherent slab of artistic feeling. That’s what I’m hearing on the band’s debut album Pleasure’s All Yours. The LP’s title track opens the record with a drony groove that only improves with repeated listens. The guitar tension pulling at “Good Enough” reminds a bit of The Futureheads. “Diamond Dreams” rides a relentless lead guitar lick into a kind of repeated meditative surge. Then you have “Nostalgia,” the clear radio-ready single here. “Got Damage” is also a singalong chorus charmer. This whole record is a full listen pleasure centre. You’re gonna hit play and just enjoy the trip from the start of side one to end of side two.

Check out the exquisite atmosphere A Country Western establish from the first bars of “Great is the Grip of the Hawk” from their 2024 LP Life on the Lawn. You are enveloped in a tonal topiary, so carefully manicured is the sonic landscape. Start the montage. Then “Sidewalk” clears the air, its aural attack is more straightforward. “The Dreamer” launches with legendary rock and roll chords before going for a Velvet Underground talk-singing strut. “The Spine” and “How Far (ft. Winter) couldn’t be more different in their vocal approach, one subdued, the other a bit wild. The rest of the album continues to play with layering sonic elements in slight tension with each other, sometimes bouncy (“Ridgeline”) or propelled by a buoyant lurch “Magnetic.” “For a Voter” is the closest thing to a pop song on the record, resting firmly in the REM tradition. “Hiding Out” dials things down to most minimalist folk rendering. Then closing cut “Wasting the Weekends” ambles us out the exits, releasing us from the grip of a pretty intense artistic experience.

Substantial doesn’t necessarily mean heavy, though that’s ok too. Here were three acts going a bit deeper sonically than our usual offerings but without neglecting the melodic hooks. Each bears spending a bit more time with to really land on their scene. Further hyperlinked liaisons are definitely recommended.

Photo courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.