On “Sugar Husk,” Novelistme channels the spirit of ’90s indie grit in a performance that sounds both familiar and wonderfully unrefined. The title, a wink at the potent Sugar and Hüsker Dü sounds that inspired it, gets at something elemental about a piece that feeds on the friction between contradictions, catchy sweetness in double-barbed distortion, simplicity with a core of complexity.
“Sugar Husk” sounds, from its first strum, like the kind of warm-hearted pop music that springs forth from chords, yet it’s so much more than memories. Novelistme prioritizes texture, with guitars that evoke an old radio transmission and vocals that peer through a strange veil of distortion. It is indie pop, certainly, but it also demonstrates a willingness to work with materials.
The timing is just right. As Oasis fever once more sweeps the nation, “Sugar Husk” is a sincere yet self-aware homage to the irreplaceable spirit of Manchester. Novelistme doesn’t mimic so much as refract that influence through his own perspective, and locate the sweet spot between mainstream and the unusual. The outcome is music that thrives on a festival stage as much as it does inside headphones late at night.
There’s an unspoken confidence that comes from working smarter, not harder, and letting the distortion speak. It doesn’t require any loudness because it’s one of those great indie songs that pulsates on its own.