Finally, an album that suggests Los Angeles isn’t a perma-sunny Instagram stream of kale smoothies, Coachella outfits and crystal healing ceremonies. It, too, has disillusioned millennials who can’t make rent, date a decent other and catch a break. That’s the city that Bleached attempt to capture on their second album, though, disappointingly, their peroxide-pop garage-rock is hardly Broad City-goes-punk. Instead, there are familiar tropes about going to shows, being wasted and chasing boys, from Wasted on You (“getting high off the drug that I call you”) to the Weezerish Wednesday Night Melody (“drag the needle on the groove today and waste away”). Occasionally there are moments of wry greatness: grunge homage Desolate Town evokes LA’s surfeit of dead-eyed hipsters (“said you were in a band/why am I not surprised”), while Sour Candy sounds like it’s speeding down Sunset Strip in a Chevrolet. Their songs are both catchy and as casual as a shoulder shrug, but you just wish those worms had dug a little deeper.
“Wednesday Night Melody” from ‘Welcome The Worms’ by Bleached, out on Dead Oceans on April 1st, 2016
The Fat Angel Sings 