In the 1980s,
Hüsker Dü demonstrated that a band could summon up a truly ferocious wall of guitar, bass, and drums while still finding room for a great melody and a reason to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Hundreds of bands have been chasing that elusive formula ever since, and it speaks well of Norwegian indie punks
Spielbergs that the best moments on their second album, 2022's
Vestli, sound like they could have been leftovers from 1987's
Warehouse: Songs and Stories, the record where
Hüsker Dü figured out how to make their best use of the studio before breaking up in acrimony. One can only hope
Spielbergs are getting along better than
Bob Mould and
Grant Hart in 1987, because
Vestli is an honestly impressive achievement. This music shows they've learned to take the full-on attack of 2019's
This Is Not the End and add strings, keyboards, and a more ambitious production approach without pulling any punches when the guitars get turned up to ten. If anything, the added details allow the emotions of the songs to cut even deeper, and
Vestli is full of people who aren't sure what to do about life, love, their friends, or the world around them. Even though angst is a dime-a-dozen commodity in punk and indie rock,
Spielbergs make it sound real and physical, like a burden they're struggling wildly to throw off. ("George McFly" shows they can still bash out a fast one for fun when they want.) It works in
Spielbergs' favor that they're a band made up of three musicians who had been knocking around the Oslo music scene for a while -- guitarist and lead vocalist Mads Baklien, bassist Stian Brennskag, and drummer Christian Løvhaug -- before starting the trio because they loved writing and playing songs. This group made most of their mistakes before they even started, and
Vestli is a more mature and carefully crafted album than you would expect of the second LP from a handful of noisy guitar maulers who've found a middle ground between the nervy melodicism of
Superchunk and the intense, muscular focus of
METZ. For a band this consistently loud, they understand dynamics very well -- the piano-and-strings instrumental "Goodbye" is an ideal intermission at the set's midway point -- and producer
Tord Øverland-Knudsen has helped them make an album that sounds expansive and emotionally claustrophobic at the same time. If
This Is Not the End was where
Spielbergs started paying off the promise of their early EPs,
Vestli confirms they've worked out their formula well enough to successfully play with it, and it's a hard-hitting, emotionally compelling work that anyone interested in punk-adjacent music should hear. ~ Mark Deming