Lazy internet journalist types would have you believe that Melbourne’s The Twerps are the Australian Real Estate. This comparison may make sense in the hallowed halls of MP3 hype, but it doesn’t hold much water upon closer aural inspection. If dudes playing guitars and singing earnestly makes them Real Estate soundalikes, then we’re in trouble. Regardless of your entry point to The Twerps’ world, the group recently released their debut recordings on the lovely Night People label (in the perennially beloved cassette format) and Australia’s Chapter Music (in the increasingly popular 7” + Bonus CD format). The Twerps cover a lot of ground here in 25 minutes and 9 tracks, from the tossed-off spoken word of “Dance Alone” to “Drunk On Me,” an acoustic ballad which nails woozy high school relationship drama with uncanny precision.

But the bread and butter of the EP is opener “Good Advice,” a jangly guitar-pop number with forthright vocals channeling classic Kiwi Pop maneuvers à la The Clean and The Bats. “Someone’s Changed” follows a similar formula, which makes it sound boring when it’s actually pretty exuberant. The whole affair comes and goes with a lightness of touch and casual intimacy sorely lacking in so much underground music, making The Twerps pure oxygen for the pop-starved brain. It would be remiss of me not to mention The Mantles here, a San Francisco outfit whose sleeper debut LP on Siltbreeze last year covered similar ground just as successfully. Here’s to hoping that 2010 brings a full-on Kiwi Pop revival.

The Twerps, “Good Advice” (S/T EP, Chapter Music/Night People)

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Words: Max Burke

Purchase the single + MP3 download from Chapter Music here and the cassette from Night People here.

Tags: Chapter Music, Kiwi Pop, Night People, Real Estate, The Mantles, The Twerps

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Reviews, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.