Stream: Smartboys, ‘Receiving the Bribe’

Kevin Bronson on July 5th, 2013

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For a decade or so, guitarist Mike Haliechuk and drummer Jonah Falco have played in the Toronto hardcore outfit F*cked Up, helping the band rise from scrappy undergrounders to critical darlings and Polaris Prize winners. The songs that the duo wrote outside the band have taken shape, with the help of singer Tim Westberg (of U.S. Girls), as Smartboys. Here, propulsive rhythms and earsplitting guitars make just enough room for Westberg’s power-poppy vocals. It’s reminiscent of punk rock’s early days, and of some of the 1990s indie bands who had one foot in the 1970s. Smartboys have followed up “RSVP,” their May release on Deranged Records, with a 7-inch for L.A.-based White Iris Records. “Receiving the Bribe” (b/w “The Wrench of Recollection”) was made in Brooklyn with White Iris founder Daron Hollowell. Turn it up till it hurts.