Album Review: The Exbats – Song Machine

Maybe it’s that they’re coming from a small town in Arizona, or maybe it’s that the band was started by a father/daughter duo who loved listening to old records together. Whatever inspired it, The Exbats have proven to be great crafters of songs that hearken back to the bright, jangly pop rock and power pop of the sixties and seventies. On their latest LP Song Machine, the group transports us back in time sonically, while keeping a lyrical foot squarely in modernity.

Being out in the desert, one might think the group is longing for feisty beach parties, listening to songs like “To All the Mothers I’d Like to Forgive”, with its tambourine-happy jangle and peppy drumming, or the catchy “Himbo”, which mercilessly rips apart stupid men (“I met a broadcaster. He was a molester. Don’t want no anarchist”). The energy and spirit in these tracks are vibrant, even as things get a little darker on the surfy “Better at Love”. Even if the jangly sounds of songs like “Riding With Paul” take you back to another era, the look at an ex’s mental health issues still feel completely relevant (“He’s got his crises. Thinks he’s under attack”).

If the band isn’t mentally at the beach, then they’re sometimes in a classic, Happy Days-esque diner, getting teens up to dance with the sweet, doo-wop flavored melodies of “Singalong Tonight” or the breezy harmonies of “Easy to Be Sorry”, where they even incorporate some choral touches and strings as if wanting to reach back even a little further to the classic pop of the fifties. But wait! The group is now throwing on some leather jackets and channeling The Ramones on the aggressive “Food Fight”, or the heart-on-your-sleeve power-pop love song “Like It Like I Do” (lyrics like “somebody had to show me I didn’t really know me” strike a strong chord).

At times, the pastiche is a little heavy. The slow-dance ballad “If I Knew” could have used a bit more of the band’s own voice, and “You Got My Heart Hot” just narrowly avoids feeling like a country-rock parody thanks to the fun the band sounds like they’re having recording it. They do better on the folky “What Can a Song Do”, which bleeds with melancholy. And while “The Happy Castaway” lyrically and melodically works as an album closer, part of me wishes they had cut things off with “Cry About Me”, so the final words we were left with were “I’m overdue to fuck off outta here.” Man would that have been a statement!

But that’s just my own bias coming in. What I can say without bias is that The Exbats‘ Song Machine is a blast of bubblegum retro rock n’ roll and deserves some time on your speakers this Fall. Hear the whole album this Friday, Oct 13 (out on Goner Records), and hear the latest single here.