Pale Gallery, The - The Pale Gallery

Reviewed by: OKComputer1016 (06/25/08)

The Pale Gallery - The Pale Gallery
Record Label: None
Release Date: Early 2008

Who?

The indie hub of Chicago scores yet again, but this time Tim Kinsella isn’t even in the band! The Pale Gallery are an up-and-coming Windy City quartet with an ambitious 90’s comeback sound. For the time being, they’ve got a modest Myspace account (I regret to inform you that yes, this is the way that we judge popularity these days), and haven’t been signed yet, but there’s little doubt in this reviewer’s mind that a change is in store as far as those statistics are concerned.

How is it?

As soon as I saw a song title that used the Sonic Youth referencing ”YR,” I knew that I would enjoy this debut EP (Blood Brothers got similar preliminary credit on their final album). The music plays nicely into my recent obsession with Pavement; it’s the same type of hooked-on-pop, just updated for the new millennium, with the occasional back-and-forth guitar antics of Interpol. Don’t hold that last part against them, though - there’s nothing “retro” or “new wave” about it. These are all indie tracks the way the alternative-era defined the term: punk-tinged, melodic and catchier than a baseball mitt.

At 20 minutes, the EP ends just as soon as you’ve learned the chorus refrains (“whoa-ho-whoa-whoa” is one of the trickier ones), but 1/3 of an hour is long enough to catch what these guys are all about. Hopefully the debut album will be all this, but longer.

Recommended if You LikePavement, Weezer, Mudhoney

myspace.com/thepalegallery