Everyone knows: the post-coronal spring really starts when the Afterpartees hop into the meadow. On April 8, the club tour of the power pop princes from Horst in Limburg will start in Ekko in Utrecht.
That gives us two weeks to get their third album Family Names to get to know, recorded in a ‘log cabin’ near Horst. That will go smoothly, because Afterpartees songs stick easily, cheerful and effective as they are.
the one on Family Names seem to celebrate everything that is now possible and allowed again: getting together with your friends, parades (The Parade), the swimming pool (Poolside, Midnight), being free (So Free†
The echoes of Jonathan Richman have remained. In Melatonia do you think: ha, The Strokes have regained their form and good humor, but no, so it is the Afterpartees.
The band sounds like it always sounded, but with just a little more refinement, more feeling for the album as a total experience and with the ability to move in a song like The Buun† A declaration of love to their favorite pub that has had it so hard.
Their discoverer and first record boss, the Groningen record seller Jan Kooi, who died in August, would have been proud.
After-party
Family Names
doll
At Ease/Konkurrent
What new music has been released and what do the experts at de Volkskrant think about it? Check out our music page with this week’s album, all reviews and the tracks of the week.