Listening to Olympia, Washington's Gun Outfit, you know that there's going to be a little bit of nostalgia at play. These guys nail Sonic Youth's noisy disaffectedness and Courtney Love's flat growl, but it doesn't feel like empty nostalgia so much as carrying on a tradition that never really died out. You can probably chalk part of that up to the fact that Olympia is a bubble where people live cheap and see out their idiosyncratic influences with sincerity. Three albums deep, Gun Outfit keep refining their craft, tightening the vocals and riffs and perfecting their sloppiness like they're writing huge pop singles. When Carrie Keith ends the song with the lyric you lost me somewhere in the blue, you expect her to keep going, finish the thought; she doesn't, and the song is better for it. Gun Outfit's Hard Comin Down is out April 2nd on PPM.
Stream: Gun Outfit, "Flyin' Low, Maria"
