Posted on: July 12, 2013 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

Seeming to come out of nowhere, Nashville’s Joy of Painting have just turned in one of the most exciting EPs of the year, genres be damned (they happen to straddle garage, punk and pop, in case you were wondering). With just seven songs, the band has actually managed to make Indie rock sound fresh, a big task when you consider that just about every band with a release in 2013 seems to be writing their records via some quickie cut and paste program to maximize the mediocrity.

Sounding like a more sober version of The Replacements and seemingly drawing inspiration from everyone from The Format to The Black Keys, just about every song off of Tender Age is vying to be your next favorite (though I’m still not sold on the more mellow “Ghost”).

With sing-along choruses, tight distorted chords, a brilliant rhythm section and even an f-ing horn section on “Good Mood” (I thought Springsteen was the only one since the 80’s who was able to make a sax sound cool again), Joy of painting have just set the bar amazingly high for their next effort. And while we’re slapping backs here, let’s raise a toast to Detroit’s South Division for picking up these guys.

 

The Joy of Painting – Tender Age LP/7 tracks/South Division/2013

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