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Smoosh Free to Stay
Barsuk
If you’ve heard of Smoosh, and perhaps you haven’t, you know the gimmick. So let’s get it out of the way: Smoosh are Chloe, and Asya, and yes, they’re 12 and 14. Bujt isn’t rock music about the young, about the giddy joys of adolescence? Weren’t acts like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Jerry Lee Lewis (ok, bad example) reaching out to the young people? Well, this is the youth of America deciding to take matters into their own hands.
Track listing:
01 Find A Way
02 I Would Go
03 Free To Stay
04 Rock Song
05 Waiting For Something
06 Clap On
07 Glider
08 Gold
09 Organ Talk
10 She's Right
11 This Is Not What We've Become
12 Slower Than Gold
Of course, all of that would be irrelevant if the music didn’t hold up. But tracks like “Find a Way” and “Free to Go” have an unassuming, Stars-y quality. The girls’ vocals are stronger than most 25-year-olds, with a youthful naiveté that is affecting rather than pretentious. Lyrically, there are a few stumbles (“She’s Right” - “Everybody’s feeling nice/ Everybody’s feeling cool”), but less than your average rock band, regardless of age.
If Smoosh’s debut She Like Electric was perhaps weighed down both by concept and inexperience, Free To Stay is an album embracing youth and all its misconceptions, delivered with grace and style. From the piano-plunk of “This is Not What We’ve Become,” it’s clear that Smoosh have more in common with Regina Spektor than Mandy Moore. So go on, enjoy it, because adulthood is just around the corner.
