Skating Club

After dumping years of stockpiled singles on a debut album, incipient bands often find themselves at a creative loss for follow-up material, understandably so, considering they probably spent the last year insularly soaking up brief tour stops or fuddled by post-gig intoxication. For this reason, it’s easy to find LPs based entirely on weary peregrinations in any (used) record shop. Skating Club adopt this travelogue approach on their sophomore Bugs and Flowers, but avoid the bargain bin through well-crafted tunes and thematic coherence. Beyond the titles of "Stockholm” and "Virginia is for Lovers” lie reflective cogitations on what one finds, as well as what one leaves behind on the road. The monotony of barren piano and guitar hooks that adorn each track is broken by errant yet fitting chimes and single-note sustains, leaving you a little winded and drained by the final (hidden), songbird laced dirge, but that’s exactly the point.