“Now I have to listen to the bullshit he’s gonna say…Every day, every day.” Portland’s Souvenir Driver has released an EP called Brace Yourself on Bandcamp featuring four songs written in disgusted reaction to Trump’s election. The band is donating all proceeds from the recording to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the ACLU. (Incidentally, Bandcamp is donating all its proceeds this Friday to the ACLU.)
The band describes themselves as “bliss pop,” but the term sounds more bubbly to me than the edgy, melancholy sound I hear in their full-length records, even more than on Brace Yourself. On their website, you can stream the albums Living Color and Lifts The Curse, as well as two solid music videos.
The EP opens with the cool, dispirited lead guitar and low vocals of “Winter Birds,” before bursting into the post-punk-leaning “Glass Ceiling.” The latter has a great bassline and more urgent vocals, with singer Nate Wey occasionally sounding like a raspier Ian McCulloch. The song drives itself into an exciting climax with the repeated line, “You would always say that this day would never come!” …Yeah. “Dumb Nightmare” contrasts jaded vocals with some really interesting guitar sounds and “Normalization” wraps things up sadly with synths and dreamy guitar.
Souvenir Driver plays Harvard & Stone in L.A. on March 29 and it should be a great show. Check out the video for “Philosophy” from Lifts The Curse after the jump.
