fish narc – “Big Dumb World”
There's something brilliant happening right now where the indie world is having a real love affair with that scrappy '90s alt-rock energy, and fish narc are right in there swinging. Ben Funkhouser's got the knack for making that era feel fresh rather than just nostalgic. It's the difference between a tribute act and genuinely capturing why those songs mattered in the first place. If you've been craving that jangling, slightly chaotic power-pop spirit without the irony quotation marks, this is exactly the sort of record that reminds you why the underground keeps circling back to that sound. Worth your time if you're into guitar-driven pop that doesn't take itself too seriously.
From Stereogum: A decade ago, I never would have predicted a future in which vast swaths of the indie underground make it their goal to meticulously evoke the alt-rock-era power-pop of Gin Blossoms and the Lemonheads. But that's the (glorious) reality we're living in now, and fish narc is generously contributing to the phenomenon. Like a much cooler alternate-reality MGK, Ben Funkhouser has been on an arc from So…