Indie rock has always meant to be the weird cousin of the alternative rock world, but in our modern publicity-fueled ecosystem where the safest songwriting structures with the most conventionally marketable faces get pushed unto the masses for an easier sell, something coming along like Bruiser and Bicycle is a reminder of what looking outside the box can and should sound like if you want to challenge the status quo. The Albany four-piece – led by the unconventional pen of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Nick Whittemore – are what one might besmirch as “record collector’s rock” for the mere reason that their debut full-length, Holy Red Wagon, is a cohesive yet amorphous collection of songs intended to be digested in a single sitting, and while it may fine do just that, it would not hurt to mentally prepare yourself to have your senses unspooled in zig-zag pattern. Whittemore’s voice often float about with descriptively scenic lyrical chaos like helium to air in excitable think bubble form. The sounds behind them trip psychedelically in color swirls, and any borders are rubberized to bounce its bash of freak-folk implosions and noise pop – touching the paw prints of early Animal Collective and a sedated Spirit of the Beehive – further upward. Movement is constant because this journey was meant to ascend its way skyward.

Highlights: “Aerial Shipyards”, “1000 Engines”, “We Thought the Sky”

Bruiser and Bicycle’s Holy Red Wagon will be released April 5th on Topshelf Records.

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