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Kiwi Jr
Football Money
Mint - 2019
Michael Panontin
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Bright lights, big city.
That's pretty well the narrative for Kiwi Jr.'s first record. The four members - singer-guitarist Jeremy Gaudet alongside guitarist Brian Murphy, bassist Mike Walker and drummer Brohan Moore - are transplanted Prince Edward Islanders, having all made their way to Toronto over the past ten years. Football Money is an account of the guys' experiences in the increasingly dazzling, fast-paced and rat-racy life in the modern-day Big Smoke. "Even though we're all East Coasters, there's no nostalgia or romanticizing small towns," Gaudet explained. "Football Money is very much a Toronto record. This album is about the neighbourhoods we live in and our lives here."
Those experiences are distilled into terse two-minute snippets of catchy hook-laden indie rock. The best of the bunch - well, to these hoary old ears at least - are the janglier ditties like 'Salary Man' and 'Swimming Pool', which straddle a lovely line between the Byrds' delicate phrasings and the more rougher-hewn riffs of Big Star. The former is a particularly witty take on all those corporate slaves stuck on the never-ending treadmill of work-party-puke-crash-repeat ("So often there's / no time to think / I know my body / I vomit into the sink / and that's okay"). Even better is the latter, a sort of coming-of-age confessional that rather cleverly works the imagery of a dead Brian Jones (found at the bottom of a swimming pool, in case you had forgotten) into its beautifully mellifluous chorus.
At just twenty-seven minutes, Football Money sits somewhere between an EP and an LP. Mint is still keeping the old CD format alive on this - bless them! - but we know all you indie kids are jonesing for that 12" vinyl, which comes with an inner sleeve with full printed lyrics. Good choice.
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Mint
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