Big Ups - Eighteen Hours Of Static

Us Europeans definitely have a rose-tinted, misty-eyed view of the States, musically at least. It’s as if Brooklyn is nothing more than one big hipster commune, all thrift store plaid (not tartan) shirts, beat-up Fender Telecasters, and scruffy boys drinking PBR. When The National unveiled the list of guests on last year’s ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ and it included the likes of Annie Clark and Sharon Van Etten, they shrugged it off: “they’re just neighbours of ours”.

Big Ups’ debut ‘Eighteen Hours of Static’ perfects, within its eleven tracks, the ability to both smash these dreams and keep the wonderful myth alive. The guitars are (mostly) well-worn not out of choice, but over-use; if the same kids were dossing around in the UK they’d be wearing Primark and necking Skol. “Everybody says it’s getting better”, growls vocalist Joe Garralaga on ‘Justice’, “but it’s bad, still bad”.

Musing on the human condition pervades the record; “Do you feel anything?” he asks during the ferocious ‘Little Kid’. But the answer’s yes – it’s a question surrounded by brilliantly scrappy punk riffs, vocals which veer from a Black Francis shriek to Dylan Baldi’s frustrated fury, and guitars hopping between doom, grunge and back again.

And yet it’s not noise for noise’s sake – it’s melodic. It’s quiet at points, frantic at others. It’s dark, it’s messy, it’s a dank and smelly basement. Just as we’re allowed to picture all sub-floor level spaces across the Atlantic. Right?

Listen to Big Ups’ album exclusively on DIY.