Sunday, November 08, 2020

The Favourite Ones - Anthology Of Love

Hey, pop people! I've got a good one for you today! The Favourite Ones are another one-man-band featuring the talents of Bandung, Indonesia's Andresa Nugraha (The Battlebeats). But The Favourite Ones are miles away from the Teengenerate/Reatards inspired low-fi trash of The Battlebeats. On this project, Andresa (vocals, guitar, bass, kazoo, keys, drums) explores his love for classic power pop by way of doo wop and early rock and roll. Anthology Of Love features six tracks of well-crafted and deeply romantic pop songs. And while The Favourite Ones and The Battlebeats prove to be very different projects, I am happy to report that Andresa is just as well-suited to power pop as he is to garage punk. He knows how to write a good pop tune with a hook, and I like that this EP is full of little love stories that ultimately form a larger love story. His main reference for this project is definitely '70s power pop, but he's also tracing it back to Buddy Holly and all the melody-driven vocal groups of the '50s and early '60s. This is a very successful foray into a pure pop sound for Andresa! Within the first ten seconds of "Julia", I knew I was going to love this EP! And how many of us will relate personally to "Telephone Bill" (I'll tell you, these kids these days don't know the pain of literally not being able to afford a long-distance relationship!)? Cassette copies are available from Chickpea Records. Hit up Discogs for ordering info!


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