Massachusetts quartet Speedy Ortiz have released “The Graduates,” the second single from their upcoming full-length album “Foil Deer”. Like first single “Raising the Skate,” the new track finds the foursome retreading the off-kilter, hypercatchy pop-rock that made their previous LP, 2013’s “Major Arcana”, a critical favorite. On the new track, the vocal layers are more ornate, the storytelling more elaborate and the instrumentation richer and more complex.The group’s penchant for lovable-loser subject matter persists: “I was the best at being second place, but now I’m just the runner-up,” frontwoman Sadie Dupuis laments of the love interest with whom she was a “French Club drop-out” and then a “law school reject.”
The track incorporates grunge grunge riffs that, when combined with Dupuis’ audible situational frustration, sound ripped from the Nineties underground – not exactly sugary but still an undeniable earworm. Though “The Graduates” is slower and more self-deprecating than “Raising the Skate” which found Dupuis declaring, “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss” – when taken in tandem, the two new tracks reveal a flashier side of Speedy Ortiz than the one that made “Major Arcana”.
Foil Deer follows up last year’s four-song Real Hair EP, and is set for release on April 21st; “The Graduates” is available for instant download with any iTunes pre-order of the album.
The Fat Angel Sings 