Artist: Ponys, The
Label: Matador Records
Release: year
Chicago’s The Ponys used to be pegged as a garage band, steeped in the sounds of the seventies and late sixties with a flirtation or two with psychedelia. With their third album, Turn The Lights Out, they’ve leapt a good decade forward. To be precise, into the second half of the eighties, when newer and heavier waves, with an even stronger undertow, were rolling through the waters of alternative rock.
With this record, The Ponys have basically soaked themselves in a sound that’s fixated mostly on three cult peaks from Sonic Youth, who were in dazzling form right in that period – EVOL (1986), Sister (1987) and Daydream Nation (1988). At the same time, they haven’t forgotten the things that already made them recognizable, so The Ponys still remain The Ponys above all, and they’ve never denied or hidden their influences anyway.
You can also hear that a few other factors had a serious impact on their sound. Among other things, original guitarist Ian Adams left and Brian Case took his place, and he definitely brings plenty of freshness to the music. With him, The Ponys venture into territory they’d left pretty much unexplored before, and a great example of his “spacey” playing is the song “Poser Pyschotic”.
Another noticeable change is the jump from a small indie label to Matador, which of course opens more doors than In The Red could, where they put out Laced Romance (2004) and Celebration Castle (2005). A more polished production fits that move, even though on the previous album they worked with none other than Steve Albini, who keeps insisting he’s not a producer but just an engineer who records music well and so doesn’t need any production. On Turn The Lights Out they handled that side themselves, with expert help from John Agnello, and the result is naturally a somewhat less robust sound, but still raw and unsynthetic enough that they haven’t really lost anything, or at least not much. Maybe even the opposite?
So this album is a logical continuation of their earlier work precisely because none of their albums implies a sequel, which means Turn The Lights Out isn’t a follow-up to anything, just a self-contained whole, and The Ponys sure don’t seem bothered by that.
Lineup
Jered Gummere: Guitar, vocals
Melissa Elias: Bass, vocals
Brian Case: Guitar
Nathan Jerde: Drums
Production
John Agnello and The Ponys
Tracklist
1 Double Vision
2 Everyday Weapon
3 Small Talk
4 Turn the Lights Out
5 1209 Seminary
6 Shine
7 Kingdom of Hearts
8 Poser Psychotic
9 Exile on My Street
10 Harakiri
11 Maybe I’ll Try
12 Pickpocket Song
Album length: 41:40
