Rating: NN
Before sisters Jessica and Jennifer Calvin formed Bleached, and before they joined now defunct post-punk band Mika Miko, they were teenagers living in the suburbs of L.A., sneaking into Hollywood punk shows, hanging out at DIY all-ages venue the Smell and teaching themselves how to play guitar in the family’s garage.
This upbringing influenced Bleached’s fantastic early singles, but on their debut album, all the rawness, energy and grit is gone. Instead, the LP is chock-a-block with polished pop songs about boys – loving boys, waiting for boys to call, daydreaming about boys. There’s nothing wrong with being boy-crazy, but the subject gets trite after 30 minutes.
Hard-hitting drum rolls, reverb and hooky guitar refrains are all over the album, so it’s a shame that it still grows stale by the end. However, they show some promise on Searching Through The Past, which starts as a standard pop song but finishes as guitar-fuelled static noise.
Top track: Searching Through The Past
