Readers, meet The Very Most. The band are from Boise, Idaho, on which a couple of fucking humungous FACTS. First, the bad fact: Boise is responsible for foisting Curtis Stigers on the world. Fortunately for Boise, ten years before it did that, it did something else, something good. Second fact: Boise is the birthplace of Kristine Sutherland. You should know who I’m talking about. If you don’t it’s entirely possible her fictional daughter will come round your house and slay you; you’d deserve it, ignoramuses.
Back to the music, then. The Very Most are pure indie pop – cheerful but melancholy, jangling guitars, touches of glockenspiel, treated vocals a-la-Beach-Boys, jaunty piano, capisce ? Their latest EP (in a long line of EPs since their last album proper in 2008) is entitled after the opening track “Just A Pup”. You can download the EP here or take a listen to the title track below.
“Just A Pup” is wistful, bittersweet prettiness – the concentrated essence of a sensitive indie-boy falling into love and unrequitedness, injected into vinyl. “Idaho, America in 2049” is an intriguing three-part tune that finds the band at their most-Brian-Wilson, but again delivering good pace, attractive melodies and solid playing. “We Don’t Have Any Cuts To Waste” quickly became my favourite on the EP not least because, in amongst its consideration of the parlous economic situation facing the States/the world and the position we have been left in by previous leaderships, are the Bush-baiting lines:
“there’s a dumb guy
whose dad was a less dumb guy
they of course were wealthy
they held the same title
took an oath on the bible
the dumbest one got to do it twice”
The bum note in all of this is the cover of “It’s Not Unusual” that closes the EP. I’m not sure what it’s for; it’s not an intriguing new reading, it can’t hope to compete with the original and it sounds ever-so-slightly like the kind of novelty cover that cropped up in the mid-90s, and they need to stay there.
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