MP3: Young Holidays – “Pretender”

The tightly constructed garage-rock of Young Holidays reminds of early Wolf Parade material, when joyously sloppy guitars, flurries of playful keys, and frenetic percussion resulted in some of the most buzzed-about material in the indie-rock blogosphere. Their underrated “Disco Sheets” is a nice point of comparison. The chorus on the exceptional “Pretender” is reminiscent of Wolf Parade’s key-led fervor, but Young Holidays infuse a unique art-rock twist during each preceding verse. Max Holiday – who wrote, performed, and produced all four tracks on Young Holidays’ debut EP – momentarily assumes a haughty tone akin to Alex Turner or Ricky Wilson, followed by a crunchy burst of excitement courtesy of the guitars and keys. It’s not all furious and fast-paced DIY garage-rock though. “Saturdays” even has an interlude with a twinkling piano and a slight string pad, which serves as a bridge of sort before the gleeful chorus signified by a psychedelic organ. This is some excellent stuff from the Milwaukee-based act.

This arrived in my inbox just a few hours, and was addressed to a bunch of other blogs as well… so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bunch of posts on it soon. We can excuse the impersonal nature of a submission when it’s this good. Download the entire EP for free on their Bandcamp, or stream it below:

MP3: Young Holidays – “Saturdays”