Album Review :: Bleached - Welcome The Worms

Bleached

Welcome The Worms

April 1 2016 (Secretly Canadian)

7.5/10

Words: Alison Mack

LA's Bleached offer an April Fool's Day release with 'Welcome The Worms', but there's no joking around on this second album from sisters Jennifer (vocals, guitar) and Jessie (guitar, bass) Clavin.

Roping in producer and engineer Joe Chiccarelli (Morrissey, The Strokes, Elton John) and co-producer Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, YACHT) for the project, the garage pop girls, with bassist Micayla Grace, have come out with something that digs deeper into California punk than on their inaugural outing; and not just that, but also digs into the underbelly of LA life, that of the men, the beers, failed romances and Sunset Boulevard, echoing Jennifer's declaration of: “We don’t want perfection because it’s boring. We want to make music that’s as real as life.”

Debut single, the Bangles-esque 'Keep On Keepin’ On', opens the show in a fierce grip that eschews punk for pop sensibilities, hooks and melodies. Quick, frenetic and filled to the brim with taught riffs, ‘Trying To Lose Myself Again’ shows someone caught up in the maelstrom of sex, drugs and despondency in a lost soul city, but still with a resolve that they, “don’t want to live my life / the way you think is right”.

‘Wasted On You’s pop-punk bombast of melodic riffs over Clavin stating in no uncertain terms that “I can’t keep wasting my emotions on you-ooo-ooo / getting high off the drug that I call you-ooo-ooo”, work well before the darker tones of ‘Desolate Town’ which crops up towards the end of the record, latest single, ‘Sour Candy’ pops the pop cherry with dreamy synth lines, echoing guitar and big overlaid choruses that capture a feel of languid SoCal nights: “Sugar drenched / these conversations / wash it down with cheap whiskey / and sooouuuurrrr candy”.

‘Welcome The Worms’ is a full on run of pop punk etched with an abundance of riffs and harmonies that up the temperature control to sizzle point as those worms wriggle around your head.