Kevin Bronson on September 1st, 2014

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Listening to Hobart W Fink’s debut full-length “Back and Forth Forever” can be like being a fly on the wall while your coupled friends duke it out over how the laundry was folded. The relationship tensions on the aptly named album run much deeper than that, though, as principals Jayk Gallagher and Lauren Lakis trade off vocals and harmonize in some of rock’s fine traditions (think X, Sonic Youth and the Pixies, or lesser-known but nonetheless intelligent agitators like Eleventh Dream Day and Sons & Daughters). That Gallagher and Lakis (with bandmates Noe Santiago and AJ Brown) set their makeup/breakup to tasty indie/punk/’90s alternative licks make the audio voyeurism even better. Which brings us to the quartet’s new video for “The Fight/We Lie.” How is a fractious couple like a children’s party? We’ll suck our thumb on that question for a bit, while we try to visualize the mythical character that is Hobart W Fink. Meanwhile, fight on.