Supercrush - Melody Maker (2022)

Seattle's Supercrush make hooky, sugar-puckered slacker rock that you want to listen to over and over again. It's the kind of fuzz-tone guitar, cherry Slurpee poured through a tube amp power pop that bands like Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, and Sloan championed in the 1990s and which they pack into their short but sweet 2022 EP Melody Maker. The set arrives two years after their equally headrush-inducing full-length debut, SODO Pop, and again showcases the group's knack for crafting immediately infectious summer jams. Leading the band is singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mark Palm, a former California metalhead whose voice has the throaty, burn-out tone of your teenage skateboarder buddy asking to bum a smoke. Together, along with bassist Phil Jones and drummer Allen Trainer, Palm and Supercrush have delivered a perfect mini-album that nicely encapsulates their effervescently laid-back style. At the core of the record is "Trophy," a crunchy, wondrously compact, pocket stadium rocker that sounds something like a live 1980 Boston performance pumped through tiny AM radio speakers. Equally undeniable is "Perfect Smile," a chugga-chugga anthem in the J Mascis & Dinosaur Jr. style that also sounds like it could be a lost outtake from either of Cheap Trick's first two albums. Similarly, "Hey Christine" and the evocatively titled "Helium High," as with all of Melody Maker, are the kind of immediately hummable songs you'll want to blast out of your car speakers or on big, oversized headphones while riding your nubby-tired dirt bike around the neighborhood.