Brooklyn in the house! But you’d never know it.
The Rinse! sound like Bloc Party meets Rasmus: Clear vocals, arena-style rock, with hard guitar flourishes and hot beats. And what’s nice, too, is that they sing about stuff I understand: Love, loss, and rebellion. It’s become almost innovative to make love songs. Remember when indie meant Death Cab, and everything was alienation and girl problems? Lately, it’s all Cold War Kids and We Are Scientists. Good stuff, but gimme some simple songs sometimes.
That’s what we’ve got here. Unapologetic power dance pop punk. Plus, it’s worth repeating that they’re from Brooklyn. All of us BK kids know that there’s just one thing we all dream about: Getting straight the hell out of Brooklyn. And where do all wanna go? What’s the big time? Manny-hatty. The City. NYC. The city with 4 boroughs nobody knows about. I love this line, from Life On Earth: “So long, farewell, move to Manhattan.” It makes me think of home.
Will Bates is a native Londoner, transplanted across the pond to Bucktown, where he teamed up with James Rickman of Santa Cruz, CA, and formed this band. Filling it out is an Iowan (drummer/sampler Ryan Gruss) and a chick bass payler (Megan X Thomas, of Utah). What? Not a single native New Yorker?
Here’s hoping this odd collection of kids makes its way down to the DC area, so I can check ’em out.
