Hometown: California.
The lineup: Richie Follin
The background: As though to prove that rock'n'roll is in the blood, our very DNA, here come Guards, essentially a vehicle for Richie Follin, brother of Madeline Follin, herself one half of Cults. We wrote about Cults back in May when we described their music as mid-60s pop as played by a mid-80s indie band. What Guards do isn't entirely dissimilar to that. It's high school hop-pop, all sweet and innocent, roughed up and shambling towards dishevelment. Follins, who also plays in a band called Willowz and recently released a solo album based on his uncle's second world war stories, has tagged what he does as Guards "pop wave doom". That's not bad: imagine a scruffy anorak band doing one of those old death discs like Tell Laura I Love Her for some idea of what's in store on Guards' debut EP.
The seven songs on the EP make us think of a heavier summer camp who've had their hearts broken and now they're feeling all numb. We couldn't think of anyone else to list in the "file next to" slot below apart from The Verve, because the music has a similar epic but solemn tone to early Ashcroft and Co, Spiritualized because of the churchy organ sounds, and Mercury Rev because of the sense of uplift-from-pain. Really, though, a track like Crystal Truth doesn't sound like anyone except, like we say, C86-meets-1956-prom night, while Long Time could be Primal Scream when they wanted to be The Byrds, only more echoey and fey. I See It Coming is sort of Johnny Remember Me revisited – revisited by skinny-jeaned heroin addicts. There is a consistency of agenda here that is quite striking.
There is also an air of mystery, partly because Guards don't have a MySpace – Follin prefers Bandcamp – and partly because it's too early for much information to have been accrued. But we do know that Chairlift's Caroline Polachek appears on one track, that Follin plays most of the instruments, and that he and his sister had an unusually rock-centric upbringing, mainly because their step-dad, Paul Kostabi, was in a punk band called Youth Gone Mad and started another fun little kiddie-friendly noise combo called White Zombie, which is how the Follins got to hang out with the Ramones, Devo, Metallica, Soundgarden and Screaming Trees, and probably explains why, while their friends were probably listening to The Wheels On The Bus, young Richie was grooving to Time Is Money (Bastard) by Swans. Lightweight. Our mum played Raping a Slave on the way to school. Nursery school.
The buzz: "It's pretty fucking impressive".
The truth: For an impromptu solo project, this is highly accomplished stuff.
Most likely to: Make his step-dad think he's a wuss.
Least likely to: Be enjoyed by white zombies, or indeed any kind of deathless creature of the night.
What to buy: Guards' debut EP is available on their Bandcamp.
File next to: Summer Camp, The Verve, Spiritualized, Mercury Rev.
Links: Guards at Bandcamp.
Friday's new band: Lauren Pritchard.
