Review Summary: close enough, welcome back Swirlies.
Somewhere, a solitary angel clangs a scuffed up fender jazzmaster against the gates of heaven. Upon hearing no response, the angel stomps on a fuzz box and clangs again, sparking circuit boards into a shower of technicolor crayon scrawls. Her name is julie, and she likes to watch things explode.
Okay, julie is actually three young adults in a trench coat, and heaven is just Orange County, but that doesn’t detract from the group’s ability to transcend space and time like only an angel could. The trio formed in 2020, during the height of a pandemic that sent a generation of disaffected youth scurrying into backroom corridors of the old internet musicsphere to be haunted by dust bunnies in the shape of Thurston Moore and Kevin Shields. To this effect,
my anti-aircraft friend feels very much like the culmination of restless nights spent absorbing blue light and falling down rabbit holes of “similar artist” hyperlinks in order to piece together a blueprint.
First song “catalogue” immediately triggers a tidal wave of nostalgia for the golden era of 90s indie rock and shoegaze, but this is more than just a throwback, it’s a faithful recreation that misses none of the marks. Punchy bass lines and off kilter jangles clang and squeal through a hefty chain of distortion, fuzz and reverb pedals as bassist Alex Brady and guitarist Keyan Pourzand trade words that are cagey with the truth but poignant nonetheless. Their dual vocal approach is the icing on the cake here—equal parts nonchalant and delicately sweet—and with Dillon Lee’s laid back and dynamic drum work to lock down the rhythm, the trio have an incredibly potent formula on their hands. The thing that really stands out to me though is the sense of patience that julie brings to their songs. In the age of overstimulation and Red 40 destroying our collective attention span, it almost feels defiant for them to just zone out on a riff or create pockets of space between ponderings. It’s an ingredient in 90s revival that often goes overlooked, but it is vital in keeping these ten songs distinct by allowing the track list to breathe.
julie doesn’t try to blend or infuse their influences in order to appear contemporary, instead they double down on an already perfect blueprint, and wind up sounding something like a downtuned Swirlies (does anything make it more obvious than the bendy start-and-stop riff during “clairbourne practice”?) with all the quiet-loud dynamics and hushed tenderness of
Love Tara. Every aspect of their vision is executed so convincingly that I have a hard time believing this album isn’t a hidden gem pulled from an ancient blogspot post with an expired mediafire link (re-up pls, amirite?). The truth is, julie just really gives a *** about their art. They sound more like peers than copycats, and their scrupulous attention to detail and authenticity is already paying dividends.
my anti-aircraft friend has cemented julie in the canon of gen z rock icons, and their future is so bright.
