Review Summary: "I don't wanna live in California/I'd take New York any day"
Every review of the New York City-based four piece, Public Access T.V. starts the same way: they “sound like the Strokes.” There’s no getting around the comparisons after listening to their debut album
Never Enough, despite the band trying their best to shy away from that label. Between the swaggering four chord pop/rock songs, the fuzzy electric guitars, melodic bass lines, the retro album cover, and also being from New York City, it is an association that is, for the most part, absolutely correct. That’s not such a bad thing, being directly (and favorably) compared to one of the most influential rock bands of the last fifteen years. But, despite the overwhelming similarities, Public Access T.V. are their own beast – a little less rough around the edges, a lot less reliant on lo-fi fuzz, and a little more focused on delivering hook after hook with their own clean youthful, sound.
In a year full of mammoth album releases,
Never Enough slid under the radar for many (save the NME), but it is absolutely an album worth listening to front to back. This thirty eight minute set of twelve polished songs is extremely tight, well-produced, and has very few questionable moments. Songs such as the shout-along “Patti Peru,” “I Don’t Wanna Live in California” and “Sudden Emotion” are the most immediate standout tracks here, and feature the band pulling juicy melodic hooks from a seemingly never-ending bag of them. Despite sticking to a relatively similar musical formula throughout the entire album, like the best rock albums,
Never Enough does not get stale. There is no doubt that this tried and true rock formula works very well here, and especially shines when the band harmonizes together.
After listening to
Never Enough, there’s an indisputable feeling that you are listening to an already great rock band with a whole lot of potential. But, seeing as the album that this band first bonded over was Bowie’s cocaine fueled
Station to Station (according to a recent interview), and not more obvious choices like
Is This It, the Arctic Monkeys
Whatever People Say I Am…, Weezer's first self-titled album, or even the Kooks' debut
Inside In/Inside Out, no one (perhaps not even the band themselves) can be really sure what Public Access T.V.’s future may sound like. All we can do for now is sing along.
