Kiwi Jr
Cooler Returns
SUBPOP
A blizzard of hooks and non sequiturs from Canada’s catchiest new wave revisionists.
Newer wave, anyone? Toronto lo-fi alt.poppers Kiwi Jr have been reimagining melodic postpunk from 40 years removed since last year’s brilliant debut Football Money. Taking Costello, the Modern Lovers and the Only Ones as their basic framework, they slot in Pavement’s grungepop insouciance, R.E.M.’s psychfolk lustre, and angular hooks indebted as much to They Might Be Giants as to The Strokes, to make a more richly textured and culturally expansive update. Then, judging by this tearaway second album, they rampage through this new sonic landscape ruining nuptuals (Nashville Wedding), digging up Richard III (Tyler) and questioning everything from Jack The Ripper’s murder count (Dodger) to whether Woodstock really happened (Omaha). We’ll have to take singer Jeremy Gaudet’s word that there are narratives of break-ups, affairs, American politics and errant detectives woven among the scatter-gun references to Sherwood Forest, Tomb Raider, insurance fraud and ass tattoos. Either way, the wild, surreal lyricism just adds energy and intrigue to arguably the most exuberant guitar pop album of 2020.