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From P4K;

Twerps
7.9

When Twerps got together in 2008, they’ve said they wanted to write a song like the Clean’s “Anything Could Happen”. The Melbourne band did just that, and on their 2009 self-titled EP, the influence of the Clean and other Flying Nun artists could be heard in the paced-but-driving riffs of songs like “Little Guys”. Unfortunately, the EP wasn’t very cohesive— it sounded like a group of people tinkering with different ideas and sounds without fully settling on an aesthetic. There were ballads, but also a lo-fi tune where the vocal sounded like a Dead Milkmen-style monologue. On their self-titled full-length debut, they keep the Flying Nun influence, ramp up the jangle in their guitar sound, and find their voice.

“Voice” can be a nebulous term for four people, but the the band definitely has a unified point of view here. Musically, Twerps features several breezy, reverb-laced riffs, most of which could earn them an easy comparison to Real Estate— although the influence, again, likely comes from their Australia- and New Zealand-based forebears. There are also some assertive riffs, like the driving surf rock solo of “Dreamin’” or the urgent, distortion-heavy refrain of “Don’t Be Surprised”. And, on “Who Are You”, a paced, inebriated sing-along, the band’s joined by members of their Australian rock community, folks from Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Beaches, and Panel of Judges all slurring a looped “We’ll get drunk/ we’ll get stoned/ We’ll get high/ We’ll get…”

They’re tightest thematically: Every song follows a related narrative of young, conflicted love. Several times they present a melodramatic statement— for instance, “This Guy“‘s “If you want me to/ I’ll die for you”— but sing the line with a straight-faced, unswerving delivery. Toward the end of the album, guitarist/vocalist Marty Frawley’s voice becomes quiet and fragile. On “Bring Me Down”, it’s weary and deep as he quietly delivers a few vignettes of heartbreak behind an acoustic strum. He doesn’t get into specifics or talk much about his feelings— he just walks around the block to clear his head, and, after some thought, hastily decides to skip town. In the middle of the album, there’s the five-minute “Jam Song”. For the most part, it’s exactly that— a song where they jam for a while with some loose vocals attached. But in fact, Frawley’s slurring is another illustration of overbearing desperation: “I wanna live inside your soul,” he shouts.

These are all good examples of what they do so well on Twerps: excellent melodies, simple guitar lines, and simple lyrics that imply something urgent or devastating. As they’ve said in interviews, they’ve done some growing up for this album, and you can hear it, mostly in the tone of their instruments. They make those bold, doe-eyed statements, then offset them by a tinge of melancholy in their guitars, implying something more self-aware and devastating.