by Attila Peter (@attila_peter23)
A friend tells you their new favorite album has 13 tracks and clocks in at just under 22 minutes. Can you guess the genre? Something lean and to the point, no frills, that’s for sure. Maybe punk à la early Black Flag? Or a nod to grindcore classics like Horrified’s Repulsion?
With a smug smile, your friend puts on Jeanines’ third full-length, How Long Can It Last. What you hear is crisp, melodic indie pop that shimmers, jangles and makes you sway. “13 perfect pop songs,” as the New York City duo’s Bandcamp sums up the album, and while it may come across as bragging, if you think about what pop music is meant to achieve – immediacy and connection – it’s hard to find fault with that summation.
The music exudes an intimacy that pulls you in right away, and fans will be delighted to learn that Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith haven’t reinvented their sound or made a bold leap into uncharted territory. The lo-fi, straightforward production and Jeanines’ distinctive high-register vocals that characterized their first two albums remain intact. Arrangements and hooks that call to mind The Byrds and C86 bands such as McCarthy or The Jasmine Minks continue to abound and give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Jeanines’ sound resists chronology so defiantly that without knowing its release date, you’d be hard-pressed to tell where How Long Can It Last lies on a musical timeline. None of the 13 tracks would be out of place on Dolly Mixture’s Demonstration Tapes, recorded between 1979 and 1983, or Heavenly’s 1991 twee pop debut, Heavenly vs. Satan. Heck, Jeanines could even have backed The Shangri-Las on their 1967 B-side “Footsteps on the Roof,” if only time travel were possible.
This timeless quality may be the duo’s most endearing characteristic, but dismiss them as a mere nostalgia act at your own peril. Sure, there’s no denying their influences, but rather than simply recreating a classic sound, they reshape it into miniature bursts of indie pop – ranging from 1:10 to 2:15 minutes – that each carve out their own character, colored by the melancholy lyrics.
As “the years of the decades of my life toll away,” Jeanines ponder the purpose of life on “You’ll Figure It Out,” only to conclude it may be an exercise in futility: “You’ll figure it out is what they say, what they say / You’ll figure it out / But when? But when?” Her bittersweet wit recalls The Smiths classic “How Soon Is Now” – “When you say it’s gonna happen now / Well, when exactly do you mean?” – except, unlike Morrissey, Jeanine sounds resigned, not frustrated. “What’s Done Is Done” follows in a similar vein, summing up life before adulthood as the time when we “chip away at the self,” unable to avoid getting caught in the web that was spun for us all, and with lines like “You can’t fill a hole with a hole” and “Scared of emptiness at the core,” the title track even veers into existential angst territory.
Don’t let the bleak lyrics put you off, though. You’ll find that the charming melodies and catchy refrains are enough to offset the gravity the words carry. In the end, what will stay with you is the experience of having listened to an instantly accessible, pure pop record that never wastes a second on tearjerker ballads or skyscraper choruses. Given its breezy runtime, you’ll likely play it straight through again.