For their debut on the Sub Pop subsidiary Hardly Art, Brooklyn-based
Golden Triangle strike a clear pose halfway between post-punk and garage punk stomp, with some serious psychedelic fuzz thrown in to keep things loose. Released in 2010,
Double Jointer follows the band's 2009 self-titled EP on Mexican Summer (also a subsidiary, strangely enough, of another larger indie label, Kemado), and is an energetic and accessible album that ably hits all the necessary signposts needed to construct a hip, underground rock record for the 2000s. The intertwining vocals of singers Carly Rabalais and Vashti Windish guide the band and, taking from the playbook of seemingly every album released by a female-fronted band between 2007 and 2010, are completely awash in reverb. Songs such as "Death to Fame," "Neon Noose," and "Rollercoaster" are driven by clanging guitars and raw rhythms, and sweetened with girl group harmonies (likewise soaked in reverb). "Jellyroll" even returns to a familiar dancefloor rhythm that wouldn't have sounded out of place on any number of dance-punk records so popular in the early aughts. Despite the obvious stylistic proficiency at play,
Double Jointer is a bit too au courant (maybe it's all that reverb) to have much of a long-term impact. Granted, there's plenty to grasp onto here, and when
Golden Triangle hit their stride, they're like an acid-tinged
Fall fronted by a pair of sultry
Suzi Quatros (see the truly excellent "Jinx"). If every song hit on that inexplicable mix, you'd have at best a genuinely great band, and at worst an East Coast
Thee Oh Sees. Unfortunately, these moments don't happen enough and are forced to share space with what feel like self-conscious attempts to capture a Zeitgeist, and to do so without anyone being the wiser. ~ Nate Knaebel