Song(s) of the Day # 3,474 Gaadge

 Be warned. This record is a slow burner. It's a crafty one. If you give it a few plays you may find it creeps up and you'll find yourself thinking. 'I need to play this again. There's something about this one but I'm not quite sure what...'. By the end of the week you may find yourself thinking. I'm not sure about this lots principles or mission statement but this record is onto something.

The band in question are Gaadge, (it's not a good name, it's just not guys) and they hail from Erie, Pennsylvania, which is a very good place for a band to come from. You can start building a narrative in your head as soon as you hear that and it's probably an accurate .one I reckon. If not scrap the actual truth, just print the legend. Here goes. The legend. Awkward kids, the sort whose pants are half falling down and spend most of their time avoiding the High School bullies. Longing for escape. Meeting one day by the lockers, and realising instantly that they have something in common. Hatching a plan.

Gaadge have been playing together since 2014 and have a few albums under their belts. I'm sorry, if you're after a more comprehensive and reliable bio, go to Pitchfork . I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige. Gaadge's latest Somewhere Down Below, has a picture of some rather fetching cherries on its sleeve. Floating in space.. This is really all you need for an album that sounds like this.

If you like the idea of an record that has a picture of some cherries floating in space on the cover them you will probably like this record. It sounds like an Indie Nineties guitar record. But like I said its crafty. It doesn't sound like just one or two bands. It shifts its influences from song to song in such a smart but bewildering way that after a few tracks you begin to wonder if some chancer has slipped something into your coffee.

The starting point is clearly My Bloody Valentine. That queasy feeling you get when you have a stomach ache and fear for the impending results. That is the basis of their sound. But just as you are beginning to write them off as shameless MBV copyists, they slip in other ingredients and influences. 

It's always good to steal from different people. Over the course of Somewhere Down Below, Gaadge either steal, borrow or owe something to My Bloody Valentine, Elliot Smith. Dinosaur Jr, Mercury Rev, Pavement, Sebadoh Sonic Youth and Big Star's 3rd. And that's a very quickly  jotted down list. They're magpies essentially.

And by doing so they somehow concoct a personality of their own and are somehow worth listening to themselves and make them ones worth watching too. A dark horse of a record if ever there was one.