Press
Upstarter
March 23, 2026
As I’m sure anyone who finds their way to Upstarter can attest to, we all have certain bands in our lives that are absolutely timeless. Heroes of our youth, names we wrote on our backpacks with permanent marker. Bands we saw in their prime while in our prime. They were foundational building blocks of how we shaped our identities, and the soundtracks to some of the best nights of our lives, as well as the ringing in our ears to the worst hangovers of our lives (those actually come later when you’re 46 and have three IPAs in the sun, but that’s not relevant right now). I think for most people, the all-time favorite bands lists pull mostly from our younger years.
Despite the present day affording us the privilege of having nearly every song ever recorded in our pockets, it’s instead the shallow pool of bands that we have ancient personal history with that wind up tattooed on our arms, brains, and hearts forever. Every few years or so though, a new one breaks through. A first ballot hall of famer. A group of people who perhaps draw from a similar library of classics, and are able to incorporate those ingredients into something equally perfect, but also entirely new and their own. The Pretty Flowers are one of those bands for me, and Never Felt Bitter is their new album.
I feel like I need to preface this by saying I’m about as much of a writer as I am a musician. I’m just a middle aged man with Google Docs and a guitar. I wish I had the proper skill to explain to you how and why everything on here is so fantastic. If I leave out any individual member’s contribution, I’m sorry. I don’t really have the vernacular to explain the minutiae of song craft. It sounds very good and I like it a lot, and I’ll probably just have to resort to saying this in as many different ways as I can think of. Get your own friend named Jerry with a URL if you think you can do better.
In preparation for writing this review I queued up the album, and hopped on my bike for a nice springtime tour around Southeast Portland. Just as difficult as it is for me to not get carried away by a new PF record, it is equally hard to not be swept away by the city on one of the first truly warm days of the year. Cherry blossoms everywhere, people walking their dogs and drinking coffee, the low hum of lawns being mowed. During this unbelievably shit time in human history, on this tiny lone droplet of water in the endless dark vacuum of space, I find myself surrounded by beauty just as the opening track “Thief of Time” transitions into the full throttle “To Be So Cool”. I start pedaling faster.
Now, the last two Pretty Flowers albums come out of the gates hot with immediately gripping superhits on track one. On Never Felt Bitter, although “Thief of Time” is a fabulous song, it is more of a slow, meandering opener and clocks in at more than four minutes. As with much of the record, it dabbles in more elaborate instrumentation and song structure, but loses none of the craft that’s made their other output so memorable. It also tees up “To Be So Cool” so well. Sequencing has always been a strength of this band.
“Ocean Swimming” comes on next, and although I’ve only had this album for a few weeks, I can’t believe how familiar with it I am already. Even though some of these songs are slightly different from the rest of their catalog, they fit so seamlessly into it that they’re already occupying the same space in my brain. I even glanced down at my phone thinking that I may have accidentally put an old song on a PF shuffle or something. How do I know this song so well already? These songs almost immediately demand to be sung along to.
“Came Back Kicking” is track four, and I guess you could say it’s the single of Never Felt Bitter. You know it’s a hit ten seconds in, and nothing that happens for the next three and half minutes dissuades you otherwise. I don’t want to disparage it with words, it’s perfect. It’s like the Jaws of songs.
Side A finishes off with two absolute rippers in “Big Dummy” and “Convent Walls”. Both with huge leads, massive hooks and choruses. The traditional Pretty Flowers sound is like a confluence between Promise Ring, Mrs. Magician, and Bum. On Never Felt Bitter, I feel like they’ve also (very successfully) added some Teardrop Explodes into the mix, making the songs a bit more odd while maintaining all of catchiness. This really shines through on these last two songs. Side A = A+.
Side B opens with “Ring True”, my current favorite track on the album (it has changed as many times as there are songs). Thundering rhythm section, and effects laden guitars pound out something fairly different sounding than their other output, but equally excellent.
“Safe & Secure” is next, and contains my favorite line on the record, “You can always call your mom until you can’t”. Another banger, and has an excellent bridge and solo bit that makes it one I frequently come back to.
Another fast one for the title track comes in as song #9. It’s maybe the most aggressive sounding PF song to date, in all the best ways. Often bands will throw in a fast one on their difficult third album to compensate for the change, but this one feels right at home. Some absolutely sick bass lines make it very special.
“Feel A Little Vague” and “Tough Love” follow this up with another example of how strong the sequencing is on here. The former is a slow jam that’s very reminiscent of Mrs. Magician, with a great lead that wouldn’t sound out of place on Starfish by The Church. It pairs so well with the more upbeat and danceable “Tough Love”.
The closer “Not Dissolve” distills down the newer elements of the band that makes Never Felt Bitter an expansion of their sound. It’s long and slow, orchestral, kinda weird, and fantastic. A perfect closing track to this record.
Never Felt Better is absolutely everything you could want from a third album of one of your favorite bands. They “mature”, but all of the elements of what makes them a perennial favorite are still there. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do, pulling off a run of albums like this to start a band’s career. It’s obviously the highest possible rank of highly recommended. I can’t wait to catch them again on a west coast swing next time they tour. A friendly reminder that I am out of town July 13-17th, so please don’t come then.
Closing thoughts: I feel I need to shout out Tim Pop Kid for introducing me to The Pretty Flowers first record when it came out. Without his persistent enthusiasm, they may have slipped through the cracks. Tim is patient zero for so much of my favorite music, and I owe him a lot for that. Cheers.
Under the radar
April 14, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) Los Angeles power-pop specialists The Pretty Flowers are back with a grand return, and there is a reinforced edge to the melodic pop sound that marks Never Felt Bitter as the group’s transition into exceptional new territory.
The opening salvo of “Thief of Time” and “To Be So Cool” set the picture out for what this group are all about, both tracks are a complete bolt from the blue, endless ringing guitar and the drumming from Sean Johnson is absolute perfection, who keeps the entire album searing forward in a relentless pace.
Never Felt Bitter marks the group’s debut on Forge Again Records and was written in the aftermath of guitarist and vocalist Noah Green’s change of surroundings, making the switch from the bright lights of Los Angeles to the rolling hills of Sierra Madre.
In this setting he wrote the second half of the album that became Never Felt Bitter. “I think it had a lot to do with space,” says Green of the new work. “I’d just never had space like that before.”
“Come Back Kicking” sounds directly inspired by a range of influences from Tokyo Police Club to Material Issue’s “Valerie Loves Me,” reminiscent of classic sounding guitar hooks.
Beneath the restless melodies, there is also an underlying deep lyrical hurt, the group mediate on anxiety, regret, and resolve through fragmented memories coming to light. The cows falling through the fault line in “Ocean Swimming,” John Wayne hiding in the bushes above the 110 freeway in “Convent Walls,” The Mötley Crüe mirror in “Tough Love.”
The best way to describe Never Felt Bitter would be as a record that could only have been written by a group of friends first, and a band second. Rarely does an album sound so strongly like a group of musicians all pulling together in the same direction. - Tobias Furlong
Rosy Overdrive
March 31, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) Longtime blog readers may recognize Los Angeles-based quartet The Pretty Flowers from their 2023 sophomore album A Company Sleeve (or, perhaps, the 2024 non-album single “Police Me”). I called that LP a “very strong collection of earnest guitar rock that incorporates bits of slacker rock, jangle pop, college rock, power pop, pop punk, and heartland rock all led charismatically by [frontperson Noah] Green’s clear, everyman vocals”; I enjoyed it at the time and, frankly, it sounded even better than I remembered when I put together my year-end list six months later. Never Felt Bitter, their third full-length and first for Forge Again Records, finds the group (Green on vocals and guitar, bassist Sam Tiger, guitarist Jake Gideon, and drummer Sean Christopher Johnson) back in their Paul Westberg- and Lemonheads-influenced element; Green writes that he was inspired by moving out of Los Angeles to the more spacious and quiet town of Sierra Madre, but Never Felt Bitter doesn’t abandon what The Pretty Flowers started in the city–it’s just more.
The sprawling, fifty-minute Never Felt Bitter is “larger” for The Pretty Flowers in a strictly literal sense (that’s a dangerous runtime for a power pop band), but the rockers really do feel like they are able to take up more space and stretch out more than the band had done so previously. Gideon, who produced and engineered the album, probably deserves a fair amount of credit for that, but everyone aboard The Pretty Flowers sounds game to fill in this extra space from the overwhelming big-sky opening track “Thief of Time” to the ripping garage-power-pop-rock “To Be So Cool”. I count at least four power pop could’ve-been-hits in “Convent Walls”, “Came Back Kicking”, “Ocean Swimming”, and “Tough Love”; they could’ve bashed out another four almost-as-good-but-not-quite cuts and called it a day, but The Pretty Flowers instead spend their time loitering in the realms of darker (but still poppy) rock and roll with “Never Felt Bitter (We Burn)” and “Big Dummy”, rolling around the six-minute Western punk landscape of “Ring True”, and fading away with the somewhat-ironically titled “Not Dissolve”. Maybe this is just what moving out of the city in California does to you; The Pretty Flowers wear it well, regardless. - Rosy Overdrive
Start Track
March 27, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) As I was listening to The Pretty Flowers’ new album Never Felt Bitter, I got thinking about the world as it was forty years ago, not too much before I was born. During the Reagan era, the “greed is good” mentality caused people to crave the idea of “more”, a warped American Dream that catered to materialism and a false sense of spirituality. Megachurches rose to fame in the blueprint of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous highlighted the big homes who lived in glitz and glamour, and the stock market and private industry bloomed with thanks to the American federal government, who left most common folks to rot.
And so common folks – mostly the younger ones – sought their own version of “more”. For some, it was through connections: Punk subcultures, underground movements, fledgling LGBTQ+ communities. Or it was moving to the cities their parents left behind for the crowded suburbs, or to the vast countryside, which the invisible hand of capitalism had left untouched.
Here in the big 2-6, the sentiment remains the same: Young folks feel cramped and anxious, with the government putting money in their pockets while leaving everyone else without a foreseeable future. And so instead of caving to the pressure of capitulation, they’re finding their own way forward. It’s the sentiment The Pretty Flowers injected into Never Felt Bitter: Healing from society’s bruises and finding space to grow, to build a comfortable life, one that’s worth living.
The genesis of Never Felt Bitter – The Pretty Flowers’ third LP – came about when vocalist/guitarist Noah Green moved from his cramped apartment in LA’s Koreatown to a house in the Sierra Madre foothills. Trading city noise and chaos for sleepy town silence, Green found the space to write the second half of what would become this album, one full of big, soaring sounds soaked in the atmosphere of the San Gabriel mountains. From there, Green got the rest of the band together – Sam Tiger (bass/vox), Jake Gideon (guitars/vox/production), and Sean Christopher Johnson (drums/percussion) – to put the wheels in motion.
The four members of The Pretty Flowers – like most indie bands these days – have day jobs. In These Tough Economic Times™, becoming a full-time musician has become less of a steady career than ever, unless you have serious connections. Then again, nothing seems like a steady career nowadays, and making music (or any art) seems like the last defense against a world going off the rails and catering to the uber-elite. Thus, the energy behind the first song Green wrote for the record, “Came Back Kicking”:
“And you can take it apart or you can blow it up
Either way, don’t let it eat you up
Sucked you in to get a better look
And you came back kicking”
The track stemmed from Green pondering his own personal idea of “big music”, songs that in his words “make you feel connected to something larger”. Moving to the mountains, making music with the band: These things cater to crafting a big sound. And when that sound echoes, it might reach a few extra ears. For instance, the band performed the album’s first track “Thief of Time” in April 2025 on the steps of LA City Hall as part of the 50501 protests against rising American authoritarianism. The bridge emphasizes the importance of keeping with community, even when times get tough:
“I’ve been here before and back again
Again to feel a little worse
Bring the boys around to draw a ring
Around the waiting hearse
Again to feel a little worse”
The powerful punk anti-authority sound makes up just one color of the palette The Pretty Flowers used to paint Never Felt Bitter. “Ring True” roars with industrial shoegaze fuzz that warps toward the end, much like how authority figures or abusive figures warp the truth to fit their agendas. “Safe&Secure” brings in some Midwestern emo elements, “Feel a Little Vague” has some shuffle pop and samba mixed in to symbolize delirium. And the final track, “Not Dissolve”, slows things down with folk vibes that sound like setting up camp after a long day of escaping society’s expectations of what “success” means:
“Feels like the blood pressure of the world is high
Everyday I wonder wonder why
Nothing’s the same it’s changed so much
We’re broke down on a moving bus
I’ll tribute you and carve your name in stone”
Every part of the production of Never Felt Bitter involved the idea of vastness, with everyone learning in that “big sound” ethos. The Pretty Flowers began recording the album in a borrowed house in the hills of Laguna Beach, setting up their gear in a circular living room with a view of the Pacific Ocean. The band wasted no effort or time working to make the sound of the record as big as the waters before them. Once they had the songs in a solid state, they wrapped up the sessions at Adam Lasus’s Studio Red in North Hollywood to try and wrestle that massive sound into a master.
The result: A sprawling effort where every band member’s contributions come together in just the right configuration, making the four of them sound much grander than the sum of their parts. The urgency of the musical and lyrical ideas on “To Be So Cool” call forth the masses, emphasizing the importance of holding together with other people to put things together when they fall apart:
“I want a proof of life, a proof of plastic
Plastic bones that felt elastic
And plastic bones they break
Just like any other
Brittle things, we’ll put them back
Together”
The word “together” has double meaning there: It could either relate to the bones (or any possession, connection, or part of society) themselves needing repair, or it could relate to the collaboration of putting something back together. On Never Felt Bitter, The Pretty Flowers aren’t just commenting that the world needs fixing: They’re stating that we’ve got to fix it with one another.
Perhaps the most striking piece of collaboration comes on the track “Convent Walls”, the sixth on Never Felt Bitter. The Pretty Flowers got help from Joy Deyo, friend and member of the Long Beach band Sweet Nobody (who we covered back in November!), to provide her vocals. On the track, the band plus Joy sing of the exhilaration of escape, scraping the ivy with reckless abandon in search of something bigger and brighter than the trappings of the titular convent walls. In that place, a symbol of the authoritarian state, only the crushing machines and strict enforcers existed to bleed any sense of personality out of the populace, on which the elite would feast. But escape means a chance to search for the self, and – at the same time – search for community and hope.
There’s a reason the cruelest eras of history weren’t able to totally break the spirits of those who survived it, and why the spirits of those who didn’t make it still live on. It’s because like the big sound of Never Felt Bitter, everyone worked together to sound bigger than the sum of their parts. And while victory hasn’t come quite yet, having a strong community and holding on to it in these horrifying times feels like a win. At the very least, it feels sweet. - Will Sisskind
I Don't Hear A Single
March 28, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) I absolutely adore The Pretty Flowers. They are everything you could want in a Guitar band. Never Felt Bitter is the band's third album and we've covered the previous two, Why Trains Crash here, A Company Sleeve here. As well as perpetually bothering the Listening To This Week Playlist.
The Los Angeles quartet are anything that you want them to be. A cross between The Replacements and The Killers and everything in-between. They are in touch with what is around that is modern, yet knowledgeable about the past.
Every album progresses and here is no exception. Album No 3 is a real Guitar album, epic in sound, a big production that doesn't lose touch with their roots. You want something that is in touch with the new noisier breed of Power Pop?, here's Convent Walls.
You want something heavier, down and dirty Garage Rock like?, here's Never Felt Bitter (We Burn). Something slower, almost ballad like?, here's Not Dissolve. Ring True mixes, Post Punk with Noise Rock, yet remains incredibly melodic. It is possibly my favourite diversion, what a Guitar sound!
There are also anthems. To Be So Cool and Came Back Kicking are great examples. The opener, Thief Of Time sets out the agenda with its surprise Twanging solo that lets you know that this is no ordinary album that you are about to witness.
There is a real lyrical adeptness to discover, courtesy of front man, Noah Green, if you can tear yourself away from the stellar arrangements. Everything you could want from a Guitar band is here. Album Of The Year contender? You betcha! - Anything Should Happen
ibuywaytoomanyrecords
March 27, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) I know you've been waiting. We're almost through March. When is it going to happen? When am I going to proclaim something as the first great record of 2026? I am aware no one is actually waiting for me to do this, but...it's time and probably not a surprise of the band that takes the crown.
Never Felt Bitter is the third full length from one of my absolute favorite active bands, The Pretty Flowers. They initially popped up on my radar in 2018 when Dirt Cult put out their debut full length, Why Trains Crash. Since the moment I first heard that record, I have been a vocal advocate insisting that everyone on the planet earth that can hear my voice or read my words must check this band out. And they are a band that never lets me down. Each time they put out a new album, I find myself enamored with the new songs the same way their debut captured my imagination eight years ago.
For the uninitiated, The Pretty Flowers are a top notch indie rock band, with major power pop leanings. When I'm doing the lazy compare-to-other-bands thing, they always make me think of a cross between Built To Spill and The Weakerthans. This is at least the third time I'm writing that I'm sure, but when I listen to their albums, that's where my brain goes. Lyrically and vocally, the song wringing reminds me of The Weakerthans in the way they tell stories of regular people, but where Pretty Flowers up the ante is the absolute onslaught of harmonies and backing vocals. They make these songs soar and fully differentiate themselves from the more intentionally sparse Weakerthans sound.
And that separation is more prominent in the music which accomplishes the herculean task of looking at a Built To Spill record and saying 'I can make poppy songs with insane guitar work too' and then just do it. You have these supremely catchy songs, with hooks just falling out of them, and suddenly...boom. Massive guitar solo/pyrotechnics. And not in that annoying, self indulgent way that a lot of bands do (even Built To Spill is guilty of that self indulgence from time to time). These guitar passages serve the song, rather than having the song be a set up to show off. It's a tricky balance that I don't think many bands are able to pull off, but yet The Pretty Flowers do it time and time again over three albums. It's so good it almost makes me angry.
I'm not the sort of person that's going to write a lengthy technical deconstruction of an album. I'm not a good enough writer to pull off examining a record and providing a dissertation of its poetic merits. I can only tell you how a record makes me feel. Never Felt Bitter makes me feel great. In a time where there are so many things to look around and be depressed about, a new record by The Pretty Flowers is one of those things that I find tremendously uplifting. More than anything, I feel like it's important to hunt for joy these days, and man do I find a lot of it in this album. Stop reading this and go buy it. - Tim Popkid
Ghettoblaster
March 27, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) Do you ever have moments when you just don’t like people telling you what you may like? I have those often, especially when someone has an FFO (“for fans of”) or a RIYL (“recommended if you like”) used as a comparison. I think we’re all more than capable of making up our own minds and hearing if something sounds like something else. In the end, music is subjective and, unless you’re nothing more than a carbon copy of what came before you, let everyone else make a decision.
With that said, California’s The Pretty Flowers, led by vocalist/guitarist Noah Green, makes its way to the forefront with its new album Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again Records). Read that title again because you probably read it wrong the first time, as I did. Rounded out by bassist Sam Tiger, guitarist / percussionist / keyboardist Jake Gideon, and drummer Sean Christopher Johnson, it seems the band might be onto something here, carving out a sound all its own with its rumbling power pop sound. There’s a nostalgic feel to the band’s music, although there seems to be more sides to The Pretty Flowers than should be expected. The group’s opening “Thief of Time” is joyfully melodic, juxtaposed with melodramatic lyricism which seems to be intentional. Green reflects with his words about this frustrated and confused relationship, which might be a waste of time, but everyone’s here for the drama as the band wraps harmonies and clever instrumentation around this pop ditty. The song is masterfully executed, and if it’s heartbreak that gets us all here, I’m all in! The band shifts gears with “To Be So Cool,” speeding down highways at a frantic pace, wrapping guitar notes and power chords around seductive melodies & harmonies proving that the band is capable of creating explosive pop songs and here, there isn’t a dull moment.
It isn’t a one-off either, as the band proves time and time again it can take a pop melody and splash colorful melodies all over musical canvases. You don’t have to take mine or anyone else’s word for it and just listen to “Ring True,” which slowly crescendos as the feedback from the melodic notes eventually surround the churning rhythm that follows. Here the band not only creates a wall of sound but engulfs everything in the surrounding atmosphere. Semblances of shoegaze permeate throughout it but don’t be confused, the band’s pop sensibilities are obviously dominating. When Green sings, “We say ‘hello mom’ from the tv set/I visualize peace but I ain’t seen nothing yet” you realize he has his eyes open and is waiting for something & hopeful, while he and the rest of the group are awash in a wave of pressure coming from the combination of instruments. But now I did say there’s a power-pop aspect to the group and while there isn’t much jangle to “Ocean Swimming” since guitars are smothered in distortion, there is a semblance of it within. Green’s voice never hits a bad note, but then again, neither do the rest of the members and Johnson’s drums just drives the song along. Let’s not forget the handclaps which add a little more dignity to it. One has to admit, the band takes chances and every moment it does, wins. The vocal melodies on “Came Back Kicking” are offset by the band’s stylish crafting of the song itself, which slinks along never allowing a respite. Guitars envelop the song and the light keyboard found around here is added for good measure. The band shifts things gain with “Not Dissolve,” a lovely slower number with acoustic guitars, light percussion, and keys – with the eventual addition of strings – sets this apart from the rest of the album, while at the same time, never losing its identity.
While the group has been active since 2018, Never Felt Bitter is the release that should give The Pretty Flowers the notoriety it deserves. Why? Well, the band just released one of the greatest albums of the year. -Eddie Ugarte
Add to Wantlist
March 27, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) Ambition meets renewed creative vigor on third LP
The Pretty Flowers seem intent on singlehandedly reviving alternative rock with their new album Never Felt Bitter, or so it seems! There’s a level of creativity and energy to this new batch of songs that’s hard to ignore, nor should you want to. The Pretty Flowers are an inspired bunch here. And I’m only labeling this as alternative rock because the band covers so much ground—from arena-ready rockers to catchy modern alt-pop and a whole lot more—and I don’t have the time today to go into all the details. Let’s say the RIYL (Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, and Wilco) paints far from a complete picture.
With a record touching so many corners of alt-rock, it’s the kind of album where some may label it as an AOTY contender for its ambition and execution, while others are just here for the singles in their preferred genre of choice. Listen to Thief Of Time if you’re into jangly modern power pop. Listen to To Be So Cool or Came Back Kicking if you like catchy punky college rockers. Listen to Ocean Swimming if you love punchy alt-pop, or jangly Teenage Fanclub-esque material like Convent Walls. There’s a lot of music on this LP, and the digging and picking process sure is rewarding.
There’s a reason the press release explicitly mentions songwriter Noah Green moving from a busy city apartment to a place of silence and space in the Sierra Madre. There’s a renewed vigor and level of creativity to The Pretty Flowers on Never Felt Bitter, and it shows in every corner of this thing. - Niek
The Indy Review
March 24, 2026
The Pretty Flowers - Never Felt Bitter (Forge Again, 2026) There was a time in the early 2000’s when Los Angeles’ Silverlake area had a true music community. There were a host of bands who were friends, supporting each other on and off stage, and often playing shows together at venues like The Satellite (aka Spaceland). I know as I frequented a lot of those shows. Noah Green was a part of that scene, playing in The Henry Clay People, along with groups like The Happy Hollows and Red Cortez. But that scene eventually dissolved, not too long after Green formed his own group The Pretty Flowers in 2013. A mix of modern indie rock, old-school power pop and melodic punk that stood out from other bands coming up from the L.A. underground at the time.
Without a real scene to grow with, The Pretty Flowers carried on, finding their own way in the gigantic city. Then in 2024, after spending 13 years writing music from his Koreatown apartment, Green and his wife decided to escape the noise of the city and move east to the foothills of Sierra Madre. The change of scenery and sound clearly did wonders for Green’s creative inspiration, as the band’s latest album Never Felt Bitter, is tight, irresistible collection bursting with exuberant energy.
The album’s first two singles are shining examples of pure, hooky songwriting brilliance. “Came Back Kicking” shines with melodic flourishes and lyrics that feel life-affirming. The harmonies are on point throughout the chorus, and there’s a joyful spirit empowering the song as Green shoots off lines likes “You were a reckless little shit. Selfish, secure and full of it” with an addictive cadence. “To Be So Cool” keys in on slightly darker tones, with Sean Johnson’s quick-fire drumming speeding the song along at a feverish pace. Lyrically Green again has a poetic touch that communicates a story emotionally even as the exact meaning is up to interpretation (“I want a proof of life. A proof of plastic. Plastic dreams that felt elastic”).
There’s an aching anxiety throughout the record, coming through in the apocalyptic imagery on songs like “Ocean Swimming” (“Open up the earth. And let the cows fall right through the faultline”). Maybe it’s the peacefulness of the Sierra Madre region, but for every doom-filled lyric, there’s a counterbalance of hope and acceptance (“Close your eyes, you can still see the ocean swimming”).
One can feel the bleak outlook on society in “Convent Walls”(“A single contradiction has put me in my place. It took a giant corporation to buy up all the space. Inside the convent walls”), yet there are nuggets of humor as well (“Excruciating summer spent getting into jazz”). In The Pretty Flowers’ world, nothing is black and white. The protagonists of their songs are actively working to escape their situations (“You put your big shoes on so you could scale the convent walls”) and to survive however they can (“You were the fresh kill I needed, and I needed to survive. It’s only you that’s keeping me alive” on the fuzzy and thunderous “Ring True”).
Musically, the album is steeped in nods to groups like The Replacements and Teenage Fanclub, but those are the easier names to drop. There’s also new wave guitar lines in the melancholy “Big Dummy” that owes a debt to The Cars, and on “Feel a Little Vague”, Johnson and bassist Sam Tiger dare to incorporate salsa-esque rhythms under a blanket of U2-level sonics. Guitarist Jake Gideon knows his way around a catchy guitar line, and with Green they prove they can great a barrage of rollicking rock (“Never Felt Bitter (We Burn)”).
Yet with the melancholy closer “Not Dissolve”, the band pull back and mellow out with a chamber-folk arrangement and wilting melodies that Alex Chilton or Elliott Smith would cry along to. The song explores both the existential struggles anyone in a modern band is facing (“Fair princes of the cut-out bin. Is anyone even listening?”) in the midst of a world in turmoil (“Feels like the blood pressure of the world is high.”). As the band spaz out into a psychedelic bliss at the end, you’ll feel as if you’ve gone through a journey. Like driving from the peaceful calm of the mountains (“Thief of Time”) to the indie boroughs of Silverlake (“To Be So Cool”), through the various lively pockets and historical neighborhoods (“Safe_Secure”) of Los Angeles, ending in the messy Mecca of Venice Beach.
Even if the old scenes of Los Angeles are gone, they live on in the music of the bands like The Pretty Flowers. Green and his bandmates carry a torch for the melodic indie rock of the 00’s, as much as they do the punk of the 80’s and the power pop of the 70’s. And on Never Felt Bitter, the songwriting is simply timeless. The album is out March 27th on Forge Again Records, and you can listen to the most recent singles here and here. - Bo Liebman
Razorcake
Sep 22, 2023
The Pretty Flowers - A Company Sleeve (Double Helix Records, 2023)
Owning this was the result of an internet recommendation and one I’m more than pleased to have received. Having listened to a couple of tracks, I pre-ordered the album which crossed the Atlantic in double quick time and has since been stuck in my CD player on repeated repeats. This L.A. band—already well known to many fellow Razorcake contributors—has written a collection of songs, strong on hooks, huge on melody, and with a level of catchiness verging on the greedy.
This is indie rock with a dose of pop sensibilities, creating what will one day be considered as a classic record. To give an idea of what the band sounds like, consider a Venn diagram where forty percent each of Superchunk and The Posies and ten percent each of Teenage Fanclub and Squeeze converge. In the middle is The Pretty Flowers. The musicianship is of a high level throughout, but the bass playing is sublime at times, and really does stand out, especially on the excellent “Hit Nothing,” where the four strings drive the song along perfectly. Lyrically, there is so much to focus on here, and this is where I find the Squeeze comparison the most apt, with clever word play in place, which is what Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford have excelled at for years. This is a faultless release –Rich Cocksedge