There was a time in the early 2000’s when Los Angeles’ Silverlake area had a true music community. There were a host of bands who were friends, supporting each other on and off stage, and often playing shows together at venues like The Satellite (aka Spaceland). I know as I frequented a lot of those shows. Noah Green was a part of that scene, playing in The Henry Clay People, along with groups like The Happy Hollows and Red Cortez. But that scene eventually dissolved, not too long after Green formed his own group The Pretty Flowers in 2013. A mix of modern indie rock, old-school power pop and melodic punk that stood out from other bands coming up from the L.A. underground at the time.
Without a real scene to grow with, The Pretty Flowers carried on, finding their own way in the gigantic city. Then in 2024, after spending 13 years writing music from his Koreatown apartment, Green and his wife decided to escape the noise of the city and move east to the foothills of Sierra Madre. The change of scenery and sound clearly did wonders for Green’s creative inspiration, as the band’s latest album Never Felt Bitter, is tight, irresistible collection bursting with exuberant energy.
The album’s first two singles are shining examples of pure, hooky songwriting brilliance. “Came Back Kicking” shines with melodic flourishes and lyrics that feel life-affirming. The harmonies are on point throughout the chorus, and there’s a joyful spirit empowering the song as Green shoots off lines likes “You were a reckless little shit. Selfish, secure and full of it” with an addictive cadence. “To Be So Cool” keys in on slightly darker tones, with Sean Johnson’s quick-fire drumming speeding the song along at a feverish pace. Lyrically Green again has a poetic touch that communicates a story emotionally even as the exact meaning is up to interpretation (“I want a proof of life. A proof of plastic. Plastic dreams that felt elastic”).
There’s an aching anxiety throughout the record, coming through in the apocalyptic imagery on songs like “Ocean Swimming” (“Open up the earth. And let the cows fall right through the faultline”). Maybe it’s the peacefulness of the Sierra Madre region, but for every doom-filled lyric, there’s a counterbalance of hope and acceptance (“Close your eyes, you can still see the ocean swimming”).
One can feel the bleak outlook on society in “Convent Walls”(“A single contradiction has put me in my place. It took a giant corporation to buy up all the space. Inside the convent walls”), yet there are nuggets of humor as well (“Excruciating summer spent getting into jazz”). In The Pretty Flowers’ world, nothing is black and white. The protagonists of their songs are actively working to escape their situations (“You put your big shoes on so you could scale the convent walls”) and to survive however they can (“You were the fresh kill I needed, and I needed to survive. It’s only you that’s keeping me alive” on the fuzzy and thunderous “Ring True”).
Musically, the album is steeped in nods to groups like The Replacements and Teenage Fanclub, but those are the easier names to drop. There’s also new wave guitar lines in the melancholy “Big Dummy” that owes a debt to The Cars, and on “Feel a Little Vague”, Johnson and bassist Sam Tiger dare to incorporate salsa-esque rhythms under a blanket of U2-level sonics. Guitarist Jake Gideon knows his way around a catchy guitar line, and with Green they prove they can great a barrage of rollicking rock (“Never Felt Bitter (We Burn)”).
Yet with the melancholy closer “Not Dissolve”, the band pull back and mellow out with a chamber-folk arrangement and wilting melodies that Alex Chilton or Elliott Smith would cry along to. The song explores both the existential struggles anyone in a modern band is facing (“Fair princes of the cut-out bin. Is anyone even listening?”) in the midst of a world in turmoil (“Feels like the blood pressure of the world is high.”). As the band spaz out into a psychedelic bliss at the end, you’ll feel as if you’ve gone through a journey. Like driving from the peaceful calm of the mountains (“Thief of Time”) to the indie boroughs of Silverlake (“To Be So Cool”), through the various lively pockets and historical neighborhoods (“Safe_Secure”) of Los Angeles, ending in the messy Mecca of Venice Beach.
Even if the old scenes of Los Angeles are gone, they live on in the music of the bands like The Pretty Flowers. Green and his bandmates carry a torch for the melodic indie rock of the 00’s, as much as they do the punk of the 80’s and the power pop of the 70’s. And on Never Felt Bitter, the songwriting is simply timeless. The album is out March 27th on Forge Again Records, and you can listen to the most recent singles here and here.
The Indy Review 