Music Review // Summer Houses "Frantic Hearts"


https://summerhouses.bandcamp.com/album/frantic-hearts


Almost instantly I fell in love with the sound of Summer Houses because it takes me back to a specific time in the 1990's when a young me was discovering new types of rock music for the first time.  I feel like everyone kind of has those bands from the 1990's- around the time of grunge- that they really love and feel like other people just never quite heard of.  To that end, I feel like people are out there still searching for bands from that time frame that they've never heard before but will end up liking.

While I'm still open to listening to music I haven't yet heard from the past, I don't think such a mystery band exists but Summer Houses does manage to capture that sound fairly well.  There are bands like 1000 Mona Lisas and Dandelion who I absolutely love but don't feel get enough credit and Summer Houses would fit in so well with them, even though "Frantic Hearts" is here some thirty years after them.

At times this can remind me of Silverchair (who I also feel are vastly underrated) as well as The Mr T Experience.  It's that just that raw guitar sound that rocks through the entire album which makes it special.   It reminds me of artists like Dinosaur Jr and Mudhoney, who were maybe not as popular back then but are more so now.  Even on "Winners Circle" I can hear a bit of Puddle of Mudd, just to put this into a full rock perspective.  

"Sunny Disposition" has a faster pace like Cloud Nothings while "By Nightfall" closes out this album and just has that metal feeling of Metallica.  Listening to this a few times over can have you singing along.  Had I heard this album in the mid to late 1990's, I would've definitely been listening to it.   But since it didn't come out until now, I will still be listening to it now because when you can play a form of rock such as this as Summer Houses does it cannot be ignored.  

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