Let It Sway

Some albums feel like they've been through a tortuous gestation period. They give you the sensation that they were dragged, kicking and screaming, through the production process; as a result, they never quite sit right. They're like a suit that wanted to be one size and has been altered – it never feels wholly comfortable.

Though Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin never quite achieved the hype or experienced the craters of their peers in the 2006 blog-rock takeover that never was, there's still something of a lingering pall over anyone involved with that whole thing that almost makes them guilty by association. It makes sense that, despite a band name that begged for attention, they kept their heads low: Their straightforward brand of retro (ca. 1995 or 1979) power-pop may never be trendy, but it never goes out of style, and when done with passion and monster hooks, it can still make inroads even with more outré styles becoming mainstream (see: Surfer Blood).

Ah, the dream life of the young musician. Jamming in garages and dorm rooms, making up crazy band names just for the hell of it, playing for crowds of close friends in attics and skeevy little clubs, and maybe writing that gem of a tune that blows it all wide open. It’s a theme that has reverberated through pop culture like the ticking of a million practice room metronomes from Buddy Holly to Sex Bob-Omb. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin tell a version of this story both in their history and their music, creating youthful, energetic pop parked at a well-marked late ‘90s intersection of lo-fi guitar rock, pop-punk and alt-acoustic songwriting.