Semi Trucks

LA’s semi trucks offered up a much more shrouded version of their slacker pop sizzle on their debut for Meritorio in 2021. The last album was scotch taped and swaying on bedroom bluster. Ensconced in a sea of tape hiss and turbulence, the first outing from the band obscured some of the pop confections the band had hiding between the seams. Peeling back some of the film, but never filing down their noise-pop nails, the band dives into a sophomore release for PPM with both fists swinging. The hooks are out in the open, but the band still knows how to set the knobs to sear, letting the amps get odorous on Georgia Overdrive.

The palette this time around gets wider, with Brendan Sepe still behind the wheel, but a full-force four piece fleshing out the sounds, and Wand’s Robbie Cody helping out in the engineer’s chair. The album snips the saturated ends of indie pop into ragged paper ornaments, donning dirge and decadence with nods to Loop, GBV, Summer Hits, and Nudity. Psych creeps up the back of the neck on “Famethrower,” but elsewhere the band comes clean quite a bit more than in the past. This is especially evident when bass player Bronwyn Bradshaw takes the mic, adding her breathy vocals to the mix with an equal air of ‘90s alt-rock detachment and bossa nova slink. The scrub up sounds good on ‘em, and the band turns out a scuffed-rock charmer that’s gonna find some space between Purling Hiss and Magik Markers when you throw the angst-pop on shuffle.

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