smush
“John Dearly”
Available via YouTube
The sound of the Gen X slacker ’90s alternative is alive and well with the Brooklyn band smush, a perfectly adorable name for this band that truly fits their sound.
Can’t you just picture slapping their bandname on your skateboard? I certainly can, especially after hearing their latest single “John Dearly,” which I’ve had on repeat ever since. It’ll appear on their upcoming album, i’ll always wish, dropping on January 22.
Emily Borrowman, who plays bass and sings in smush, says that “John Dearly” is “about the experience of being in your early adulthood and still feeling like a child. It touches on making the same mistakes over and over again and feeling stagnant.”
All of that feeds into the identity of “John Dearly,” but let’s be clear, there’s nothing stagnant about this track. Those are freight train drums acting as the muscle behind the engine of this whole thing with sparkly, spinning guitars propelling it forward at the same time.
I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a lot of this sound being put out there right now. It’s like ’90s college radio has come back from the grave. For me, there’s nothing scary about that. But it’s hard to sound different in a crowded market like this. smush don’t have that problem, situating themselves as smart songwriters who are paying homage to an era of sound with the musicianship to actually march it forward into the future.
Excited to see what the rest of the album has in store for us.
