Knicks in 5. Mamdani for mayor. JUST+T MARRIED at MSG. New York, for better or for worse, is having a hell of a rebound year in its cultural cachet. It’s a good time in it all of the noise to be a band like Tiny Guy. The Brooklyn-based quintet led my sardonic social commentariat Kareem Rahma — who himself has had a hand in influencing some of the above outcomes with his hot Subway Takes series — have not-so-quietly become one their scene’s most reliably great rock bands while being completely unconcerned with their premise of succeeding at the cool game. Please Respond, the band’s second EP, not onyl further confirms this — but even bests one of Rahma’s recent guests and stylistic influences at his own game of pretentious-with-nonchalance.

Clocking five tracks in just under 18 minutes, he alongside guitarists Tyler McCauley and Joe Tirabassi, bassist Matt Morello, and drummer Dale Eisinger are building their own id off of the leather-jacketed corpse of Aughts rock revivalism by plugging Rahma’s motor-mouthing meta talking points and increasing confidence as a proper underground balladeer (“Billy’s All Right”) and glittered anthem leader (“Take My Time”) between a tight round of cleaned-up sleaze in danceable post-punk (“Time To Bleed”) and buzzcocked punk (“All The Girls Can Tell”) with an early-U2-before-capitalism-struck edge.

“Every song that you sing, that’s so boring / I’m in over my head, that’s so boring,” Raha concludes on closer “That’s So Boring” before bringing the listen to a halt. Maybe it’s an influencer’s play at baiting deprecation. Maybe it’s a hyper self-aware admission to not believing your own bullshit. Whatever the case, the brash sounds of New York City rock ‘n roll are more alive and well than ever here. Or is it still? Perhaps again? Maybe just whatever, man…

Highlights: “All The Girls Can Tell”, “Take My Time”, “That’s So Boring”

Kareem Rahma & Tiny Gun’s Please Respond is available now on ALTER Music.