by Dom Lepore (@dom.lepore)
Check out ghostass’ cobalt blue cover – it’s enough to lure anybody into pressing play. The opener, “Crangy #3,” awakens with a smattering of snare hits that break into a buzzing, sonorous shoegaze. It’s reminiscent of a certain foundational shoegaze curtain lifter—my bloody valentine’s Loveless opener “Only Shallow”—with fewer snares but an immediate whirlwind of barbed guitar licks. This earnest homage, deliberate or not, is how you can tell PFFU are incredibly good at noise pop earworms. The New York group crafted their debut album, ghostass, for two and a half years while scarcely offering short singles that are more ambient and bedroom pop than shoegaze.
Don’t be fooled, PFFU transcends mbv pastiche. The voice of Emma Witmer, who records indie pop as gobbinjr, may initially resemble Bilinda Butcher’s alluring, ghostly cadence, but Witmer dismantles that likeness on the following bouncy 2-step of “IS GOD?” – a reference to their mission statement, “PFFU is god.” They sure sound like it here and that’s what makes ghostass such a lively listen. Not only do the melodies bounce, they ping-pong between genres across the record. “All Hollow” returns to the shoegazing mentioned earlier, but begs to blow out speakers with its towering, sparkly ‘90s alt-rock riffage. “Paw the Sun” even more so, pounding the eardrums with a clipping barrage of drums. “In heaven below” treads into a quieter territory, its pensive bass plucks at the fore, welcoming noisy guitar droning.
Not all of ghostass is washes of guitars emulating vacuums. “HaHa Good” is a melancholic lumbering alt-rock tune bursting with eruptive riffs, especially at its conclusion. “wind outside of an airplane window” begins as a fascinating electronic experiment – monolithic echoes pan from ear to ear until it transforms into a punchy electropop banger. “Golden” repurposes musical pieces of the album’s previous songs, the outcome being a swaying indie rock track and golden curtain call. PFFU will draw you in with their striking blue artwork, but you’ll stay for their equally vivid music. To borrow their ethos – “PFFU is god” – with variety like this, maybe they are, writing incredibly hooky songs in many shapes and forms.