Free and legal MP3 from Your 33 Black Angels (concise, likable, hard-edged pop)

"New Song" - Your 33 Black Angels
     Concise and good-natured while also flashing a bit of hard-edged sloppiness that makes it all the more likable. "New Song" is not only so concise it can't be bothered with a title, it's so concise that it pretty much uses the same central melody in both the verse and the chorus. It works musically because...well, who knows, actually. These things remain mysterious. No doubt it has something to do with how the rhythm speeds up in the chorus, and also--not to be underestimated--the rumbly, lower-register harmonies brought to singer Benji Kast's slightly roughed-up tenor. But maybe the real trick is the fact that the melody remains unresolved in the verse. The verse kind of climaxes on the word "try" (listen at 0:19 or 0:32, for example), and that note, my friends, is unresolved. And it says right there in The Idiot Guide's to Music Theory that "you don't want to end your melody with unresolved tension." (I kid you not; Google it.)
     Well, you may not want to end the melody that way for good, but it's pretty great when it sounds like you are ending it unresolved and then you wait all the way until the end of the chorus (which starts with the same melody) to arrive at resolution. I am fairly certain that the five guys in Your 33 Black Angels have not read The Idiot Guide's to Music Theory.
     "New Song" comes from the Brooklyn-based band's self-released second CD, Tales of My Pop-Rock Love Life, which is due out next week.