Horsegirl’s sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, is a heartwarming and dynamic record that feels like finding a lost cassette of an 80s or 90s velvet underground-inspired band. Although this album does have some quirky 60s nostalgia sprinkled throughout, the band is still writing songs from a modern perspective and with influences from their contemporaries, such as BCNR and label mates Lifeguard and Pavement.

The record opens with the short, sweet indie rock track Where’d You Go? It is a song that sounds like a classic Electrelane song with a ripping guitar solo and fantastic vocal harmonies, and with only a run time of a minute and forty seconds, it acts as a nice theme song for the record to come. Rock City carries on some ideas similar to Horsegirls debut with its interesting and melodic bass lines and guitar riffs, dynamic vocal performances, and playful songwriting. The low-key banger off this album for me is In Twos, with its calm and groovy slow tempo nature suiting Horsegirl’s songwriting very nicely, as well as the spacious arrangement and cello stabs coming in the 2nd half of the choruses adding a very natural and honest touch of emotion within the production. Next up, we have the lead single, 2468, Which is a very jovial and quirky tune that sounds like a mix of the Juno soundtrack and BCNR in the most positive way possible. The strings in the song add a nice folky art pop texture, and the ending specifically of this song is a very hypnotic and repetitive ending to the song that plays around with being technical while also still maintaining their live off-the-floor rock band sound.

As much as I love tasteful attempts of revivalism I do wish this album had the same amount of dynamic range as The bands Debut Record Versions of modern performance. As I do feel strongly that this album is full of well-written songs, I do feel like there are some moments on this record that blend into each other and lack substance. That being said not all music is supposed to be the most poignant and bold and I think that the voice the band have found on this album for low key and feeling based songwriting is really interesting and is explored very well Julie is another slower and peculiar tune that explores more of a spacious instrumentation which suits the very intimate and direct vocal style very reminiscent of The Velvet Underground. The second single off this record, Switch Over is a beautiful and high-energy track with some vibrant percussion elements and some really fun and playful vocal harmonies and panning. It’s another song that reminds me a lot of Electrelane and even some more stripped-back Broadcast stuff. It is a very enjoyable song with a lot of momentum and one of the biggest highlights of the record.

Information Content is a really interesting and stripped-back song filled with gorgeous guitar and bass riffs that give the song a lot of space to come into its final form by the end of the song. This song fully embraces the jankyness that can come from riffing on a song too long, and its rough around the edges ending has charm and makes me chuckle and smile as I know that exact feeling while recording a song. Frontrunner feels like one of the band’s most mature songs and oddly cinematic for an indie rock song, with its galloping guitar rhythm and western lead guitar tone guiding the chord changes and playing around the vocal melody very nicely. Sport Meets Sound is simply a banger and a very well-performed song with really nice instrumental arrangements, including gentle piano playing. The bright and jangly guitar leads trickle in in the middle of the choruses. The B-section change of this song is really nice and refreshing for this album, and it brings the ending jam of this song to a very satisfying close. I Can’t Wait To See You ends nicely and energetically, carrying on similar aspects to the band’s ’60s influenced style of songwriting on this album. Although this album isn’t boundary-pushing by any means, it is filled with very joyful and light-hearted songs that will definitely brighten your day and make you smile, and I have to say that it is pretty nice.

Pre-order Phonetics On and On by Horsegirl HERE