Drop Nineteens – Hard Light (2023) – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

I could start this short text about Hard Light, the new album from Drop Nineteens released after a three-decade hiatus, saying that for the Boston quintet time has not passed and nothing has changed in their music, but that would be a half-truth. Because they, like me, are old (hahaha), and 30 years is a fucking long time so it’s impossible for changes not to occur, in whatever way.

Ok, the voices of Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley seem stainless and the musical chemistry between them, Steve Zimmerman, Motohiro Yasue and Pete Koeplin the same, but it is undeniable that Mr. Time acted in balancing the group’s shoegaze + alt rock formula and, at the same time, less to my ears, here they managed to sound even better than in the dear Delaware (1992) or in National coma (1995).

Hard light it will not bring semi hits like “My aquarium” or “Winona”, especially because today there are no more indie rock lists on Billboard or NME nor 120 Minutes or college radios as they were; the way music is consumed is different (thankfully) and shoegaze is no longer new to anyone, but even with all this I can say that in this surprising return the Nineteens – more or less like Ride did in Weather diaries – managed to condense into 11 songs divided into a lean 41 minutes the best of what they produced in their first years of life and, also as I wrote about their Oxford contemporaries, without forcing themselves to resemble what they were in the nineties.

Listen to the stem and confirm ❤️

Ou no spotifuck