Sounds Alike, Vol. 1: RIYL BYOP

This is the first edition of what I hope to make a regular segment here on Stoplight Sleep. In "Sounds Alike," I discuss some new and/or popular group and artists I see as related to them. In volume one, I focus on Be Your Own Pet, those Nashville teenagers with the hot new album.

Comparisons to YYYs are thrown around by people who probably work for Rolling Stone, or at least read it like it's anything more than fluff. It's also rather brainless to mention VU, Stooges, and Television. It'd be much harder to name bands that aren't influenced by them. I'd like to dig slightly deeper.




The Ssion hail from Lewisport, KY by way of Kansas City, MO. Listening to tracks from the Be Your Own Pet singles and EPs, I never noticed the connection. However, the new album instantly recalled tracks from Opportunity Bless My Soul, the band's 2003 album. The Ssion is loud and obnoxious, but also wickedly catchy. Listen and marvel:

The Ssion - "I Think I Got Something to Prove"

While listening to BYOP's self-titled album, I occsionally have to remind myself that it's not Huggy Bear, Bikini Kill's British cousins. The mixture of bullet-train guitars and scrambled-soul female vocals are trademarks of both. I think you'll find BYOP missing the post-gender evangelism, however.

Huggy Bear - "Her Jazz"

The combination of driving bass lines and screeching guitars barely held together by a drummer fighting for attention, such as found on "We Will Vacation, You Can Be My Parasol," invokes the most accessible moments of the Liars's classic debut, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top.

Liars - "We Live NE of Compton"


Today's Links
Purchase Be Your Own Pet on insound.
Purchase Opportunity Bless My Soul by The Ssion from Version City Records.
Purchase Huggy Bear's Taking the Rough with the Smooch on Amazon.
Purchase the Liars They Threw Us All in a Trench . . . on insound.