Chime School - The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel (2024)
Artist: Chime School
Author: Sarah
Date: 09/14/2024
Listen: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify
As an indiepop fan, my dirty secret is that I truly could not care less about what Slumberland's been doing these past several years. I'm still listening to all of it out of obligation, of course (this is still the label that gave me Black Tambourine and Henry's Dress, after all), but I know exactly what I'm going to get with every album: three or four impeccable influences in the album listing, a pleasantly derivative jangle pop sound, and if I'm truly lucky, perhaps one or two songs that I might listen to again from time to time.
On first glance, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel looks like it's going to be more of the same. Slumberland's product listing tells me to expect the Byrds and early Primal Scream, and that Chime School could seamlessly fit on "great singles labels like Creation, Postcard or Sarah". A recent Bandcamp interview I read from frontman Andy Pastalaniec confirms my worst fears; from the first sentence we are told the music is intentionally derivative. And yet, Chime School manages to throw in an unexpected curveball: their album doesn't actually sound like the bands we're told it does.
That's right, what we're getting here sounds to me more like the Gin Blossoms or Lemonheads than it does the Springfields or Orange Juice. There's a slight darkness to the tone of the guitar which is more akin to alternative rock by way of Document than it is to indiepop (with rare exceptions, such as the Chesterfields' "Ask Johnny Dee"). Unfortunately, that darker tone doesn't really do much to make the album stand out; like most jangle pop, I find that it goes in one ear and out the other.
This isn't all Pastalaniec's fault, of course; I could say the same thing about many of the canonized bands I'm supposed like. But that's the problem, you know? A lot of the indiepop canon has always been flat-out boring and derivative, and that ends up being what people are listening to to make more indiepop. I know better than to expect originality out of this genre, but is it too much to ask that bands be derivative of something more interesting?
(P.S. My apologies to Andy Pastalaniec for using his album as my soapbox to rant about an entire genre. Like, he tells us up front "this album is going to be derivative" and here I am like "this album is way too derivative"? The exact definition of "skill issue" on my part. I swear, I can be such a jerk sometimes.)