As a record, Guppy is superlative. As a debut, the first full-length from New York pop-rockers Charly Bliss, itsounds positively transcendent, marrying those tried-and-true, yet still difficult-to-wrangle adolescent emotions to fuzzed-out guitar riffs and sing-along melodies in a way that feels immediate and vital. Starting with a cooing “Come on baby, get me high / There’s always something new to buy,” singer Eva Hendricks calls out the ready made, disposable nature of this kind of music, yet she and her band imbue it with enough passion and artful songcraft to make it exhilarating all over again. There were more artistically ambitious records released in 2017, but almost none that are this much fun.
There was no contest when Charly Bliss were picking a song to cover from our 25-song list for the A.V UndercoverSessions, The power-pop four-piece knew as soon as it saw Len’s one-hit wonder “Steal My Sunshine” on the remaining list. The song is bright and effervescent—a prototypical summer song that works effortlessly with Bliss’ brand of energetic ’90s fuzz-rock, and they bring new energy to the typically laid-back track.
In our interview below, the band admits to adding the song to its set list whenever they DJ. Their debut album, Guppy is available now on Barsuk Records.
It’s rare for a band to pull off a record that’s consistently great from start to finish. Even when it’s a debut, for which the group presumably had as long as was necessary to whip into shape, pulling off excellence remains an elusive feat. So kudos to Charly Bliss and its debut release “Guppy”, which manages to create effortlessly appealing pop-rock that avoids wearing out its welcome on the 10th, 50th, or even 1,000th play. By presenting deceptively simple tunes that mask the sophisticated song-craft at work in every drum fill and bridge, the band’s exuberant energy and willingness to keep an edge of noise and abandon keeps even the most overt harmonies and hooks from becoming mired in saccharine sap. It’s a fantastic feel good record.
Three years after releasing their three-track Soft Serve EP, Charly Bliss have expanded their crunchy, very ’90s power pop sound into a delectable full-length debut that spans 10 enjoyable tracks. It’s their new album called “Guppy” there’s a big fishy swimming on the front with some smaller fishy pals — but it might as well have been called Sundae LP, as it’s sugary, summery, and doused with all sorts of sweet choclately distortion.
Charly Bliss is having the best time at summer camp. Andrew Costa directs this video for the New York band’s soaringly saccharine power-pop song “Westermarck” — there’s face painting, skateboarding in the dining hall, taking a guitar solo on a ropes course, sparklers. What if we all just lived at camp and the members of Charly Bliss were the camp directors? .
Some may be put off by Eva Hendricks’ vocals, and for good reason: At times, she can sound a little too mawkish, as if she’s just inhaled a tank of helium and rubbed her teeth with the powdery sugar that comes from pixie sticks. But, give the songs a couple of spins — or, you know, just let Guppy swim along and mawkish turns to punchy and punchy turns to addicting and addicting turns to love. And when that happens, poppy ditties like “Percolator”, “BlackHole”, “Ruby”, and “Gatorade” start sounding like all the ’90s college rock you once skipped over for Savage Garden and Everclear. Sigh.
Charly Bliss, a Brooklyn based four-piece, is far from the first band to revel in the glory of the 90s, but their debut, “Guppy” is infused with something more nuanced than just nostalgia. Guppy is ten songs of churning guitars, lead singer Eva Hendricks’s candy-sweet voice, and impossibly catchy melodies. There’s sheer joy here; if you’re not dancing around your room to these songs, you’re at least nodding your head along to the beat as the music blasts out of your headphones. There’s real poignancy as well; even on songs that seem silly, or downright ridiculous.
Take “DQ” for instance: the song starts out being about Hendricks’ jealousy of her boyfriend’s dog: “Does he love me most now that his dog is toast?” But somehow, in Charly Bliss’s hands, a song with the chorus, “I’m four years above sixteen/ I bounced so high, I peed the trampoline/I’m too sad to be mean/ I’m gonna end up working at Dairy Queen,” ends up capturing the self-doubt, the anxiety of growing up, and the reluctance to abandon childhood for the nebulous realm of adulthood better than anything in recent memory.
Guppy has an interesting origin story, in that it was recorded once years ago, thrown out, and then recorded again. The band, which consists of Hendricks, her brother Sam and longtime friends Spencer Fox and Dan Shure, has been touring for years (opening for acts such as Veruca Salt and Sleater Kinney) and wanted to bring the same kind of vivacity to their record as their live shows. “We felt our live show was really strong, and those recordings just weren’t doing them justice. We’re a pop band. We weren’t sounding as accessible as we thought our music could be,” guitarist Dan Shure said in an interview with Bandcamp Daily. As a result Guppy feels incredibly structured and fully-formed, without ever once sounding tired.
Charly Bliss is not a band that uses words simply as fillers in their sonic soundscapes, like some of their 90s loving contemporaries. Like all of the best albums, there’s a world inside Guppy, a frenzied, chaotic whirlwind where everything is happening at once. “Well, I think I’m still breathing/ While my parents are sleeping/ I am sick, but I’m speaking/ My boyfriend is freaking/ My conscious is fucked and my judgement is leaking,” Hendricks sings in album opener “Percolater.” It’s reminiscent of the kind of marathon days of youth, going from party to party, coming into work hungover, skidding from place to place on momentum alone –moments where you think your life is a mess but that in retrospect were the best times. There’s not much time set aside for reflection; instead it gets wrapped up in everything else.
Guppy contains odes to a cast of characters, ranging from Eva’s therapist (“Ruby”) to her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend (“Julia”), to another ex who left her for his own cousin, (“Westermarck”). The songs don’t sound terribly different from one song to the next, but they definitely don’t blend into each other and fade away either; Guppy is consistently engaging, energetic and entertaining. This is not an album for passive listening; this is one to replay all night long.
NYC’sCharly Bliss have released a video for “Black Hole” the latest from their anticipated debut album, Guppy. responsible for having crafted some of the finest guitar-crunched power pop this side of an old Weezer record with a blue cover. The ten tracks that make up “Guppy”, will be the band’s sparking full-length debut, showing them embracing all of their strengths — a combination of ripping guitars and irrepressible pop hooks, all delivered with the hyper-enthusiasm of a middle school cafeteria food fight. the song has “pitch perfect vocals ringing out over the beautiful chaos of shredding and banging.” The Matilda-style video stars sibling band members Eva and Sam’s one and a half year old cousins. Guppy is available from Barsuk Records due out on April 21st.
The band is currently on tour and have dates with Operators, Upset, Yucky Duster and See Through Dresses. Their energetic live show is not to be missed.
Charly Bliss is helmed by Eva Hendricks, her older brother Sam, and their childhood friends Dan Shure and Spencer Fox. They grew up together in Connecticut, and are now based in Brooklyn, making kickass guitar tunes like the recent “Ruby” and “Glitter,” from their debut album Guppy, which will be out April 21st.
Probably my favorite song from Guppy is its opening track, “Percolator,” with a video so sweet and cutesy.
In it, the foursome each run from their respective day jobs to fight an undisclosed evil. Maybe that grin on my face was especially wide because Charly Bliss are like real-life superheroes, out here embracing their feelings like it’s the most punk rock thing ever: “I cry all the time/ I think that it’s cool/ I’m in touch with my feelings,” sings Eva, her voice like sticky candy while she and her bandmates shred their guts out.
“I’m super hard on myself, and a lot of the lines in ‘Percolator’ are me being like, Fuck it,” Eva, the band’s principal songwriter, told me. “I was trying to make fun of myself for being super over dramatic — I’m either nothing or 100% about everything.”
Official music video for “Percolator” by Charly Bliss.
“Glitter” is just like one those ’90s teen movies. But since we’re still awaiting this generation’s Can’t Hardly Wait, we’ll have to settle for endlessly spinning this candied power-pop pulverizer on the these pages instead.
Whether you were raised on Chumped or Veruca Salt, you’ll have a taste for guitar-pop this hard-charging yet sticky sweet. That craving is fully satisfied here: “Am I the best? Or just the first person to say yes?” is an unforgettable hook, one that suggests Eva Grace Hendricks knows exactly what she’s doing — in terms of crafting winsome melodies and clever lyrics, yes, but also in terms of dabbling in the kind of romance that would be better to avoid. The upside of such that this band have a whole album of songs that is fun,
“Glitter” by Charly Bliss, off their debut album Guppy.
Though they’ve been around for a few years and have opened for some big names, Charly Bliss’ debut album is still on the horizon, and that’s an exciting prospect. With one-off single “Ruby” earlier this year, they offered up a love letter to a therapist punctuated by sticky sweet hooks and vividly violent details like being “passed out on the subway with blood in my hair.” They’ve got more effusive and sharply menacing pop-rock in the wings, and a full-length will be their time to shine.
Charly Bliss vocals Eva Hendricks might sound a little shrill at first, but don’t take long to become part of a glorious over-arcing energy of punk-ridden overdrive. But behind that there’s definitely a lot more going on. Take the song “Urge to Purge” from the brand new EP ‘Soft Serve,’ where Hendricks shrieks: “Everyday’s the same/When you get home from work I try and keep you entertained/And you know we’re both so far from sane/Picking fights to let you know I’m glad you came.” The song is one big “fuck you” to the mundane, the domestic, and the monotony that consumes our lives from time to time. Although the desire for more excitement is ever present in their music, which we see through blasts of overdrive and momentous climaxes, Charly Bliss’ is not a band with negative energy, in fact we’re feeling posy-vibes all around. they are a band in waiting for huge success
The Fat Angel Sings 