“Capacity” – Charly Bliss
To show you I’m not averse to music sounding rather more up-to-the-minute, here’s a three-minute, forty-two-second slice of 2019 pop goodness from the Brooklyn quartet Charly Bliss. Of course my idea of pop goodness in 2019 is not necessarily what appears on your basic “Top 50” Spotify playlist, but whatever. The public wants what the public gets, as Paul Weller tartly framed capitalism’s fatal flaw some 40 years ago.
In my little world, the public gets something like “Capacity,” and wants it. From the start, the contrast between the buzzy heft of the synth bass line and Eva Grace Hendricks’ girl-ish vocal style arrests the ear. (She has self-described her vibe as “overgrown teenybopper.”) The song then leads you through three distinct sections, each more enticing than the last, culminating in a chorus that hooks us, somewhat unusually, by slowing things down (0:49), with Hendricks luxuriating in a dreamy melody line with a gratifying resolution and a punctuating drum roll worthy of an arena rock band.
There are in fact any number of engaging production touches fortifying the composition from beginning to end. I like how the active, noodly synthesizer that enters after the song’s first section proceeds to weave in and around Hendricks in the song’s double-time second section. Or how about that one strummed guitar chord that acts as the gateway to the chorus (0:48), which is at once out of the blue and just kind of wonderful? No doubt we can credit a lot of this to the band’s bringing Joe Chiccarelli on board as producer; he’s a veteran who has worked with an incredible variety of artists over the years, from Elton John and U2 through to My Morning Jacket, the Strokes, and the Shins. Expertise!: what a concept.
The four members of Charly Bliss, meanwhile, have known each other quite a long time for relative youngsters—Eva H.’s brother Sam is the drummer; bassist Dan Shure is a friend from childhood; and Shure introduced relative newcomer Spencer Fox, the lead guitarist, to the others back in the second half of the ’00s.
“Capacity” is the lead single from Young Enough, the band’s second album, released earlier this month on Barsuk Records. You can buy it in a variety of formats via the record company. MP3 via Barsuk.
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