Album Review BODEGA - Endless Scroll

In the venn diagram of Really Good Music, there are records that succeed because of their playful irreverence and the rare skill of being genuinely, properly grin-inducing within the relative confines of a song. There are ones that strike a chord because of their thought-provoking politics; ones that are an impressive document of superlative wordsmithery; ones that make you dance; ones that challenge you. And in the teeny, tiny pocket at the middle of all of these qualities sits ‘Endless Scroll’ – a rare gem that combines all of these strengths in one effortlessly brilliant package.

It’s been barely six months since New Yorkers BODEGA started making ripples on these shores, but in the interim the quintet have been on the receiving end of some of the most excitable muso buzz of recent years. This is no vacuous trumping of the hype machine though. ‘Endless Scroll’ delivers on every count. Produced by Parquet Courts’ Austin Brown, the influence of their city peers’ dry delivery and witty intellect is there in ‘Name Escape’ and lead single ‘How Did This Happen?’, but this is no rip-off.

‘Jack In Titanic’ is a shouty, celebratory paean to the doomed hero; ‘Warhol’ is a deadpan 90-second rumination on the philosophies of the Pop Art king, while ‘I Am Not A Cinephile’ is little more than a series of two repeated erratic notes and needs nothing else. Streamlined and minimal but bursting with intelligence, humour and ideas, BODEGA are the real deal.