Cherry Glazerr's debut album,
Haxel Princess, is the work of four L.A. kids with a very laid-back and relaxed approach to their noisy, poppy, almost ramshackle garage punk. Led by amazingly named singer/guitarist/songwriter Clementine Creevy, the band rumbles and rambles through a batch of songs that have influences in the grunge era, early lo-fi and
Pavement, and garage rock, but fit in perfectly with contemporary West Coast slacker noise pop. The group never plays two notes where one will do, they only rarely boost the tempo above a creepy crawl, and Creevy has a wonderfully bored way of singing where she sounds like she's idly passing by a mike as she nonchalantly tells tales of heroic pet dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, and used Band-Aids. It makes for a slightly weirdo approach to pop that works really well, especially since they break up the molasses-filled mood with a few romping rockers like "White's Not My Color This Evening" and "Haxel Princess" that show
Cherry Glazerr can kick up a fuss when they rouse themselves and let loose. A few of the tracks are recycled from their first EP for Burger, Papa Cremp, most notably their oddball ballad "Trick or Treat Dancefloor," which was somehow featured in an ad campaign for Saint Laurent and made it onto the CW superhero show Arrow. Chalk it up to the times the song was released in, or to the nicely idiosyncratic sound that Creevy and crew create on the song, but there is something unique about them and it's not surprising they caught some ears. Both the song and the album are definitely worth checking out if you like your guitar pop delivered in a decidedly off-kilter fashion. ~ Tim Sendra