If you were going to go looking for rough but melodic bands, you might very well start in Ohio. That’s where the granddaddy of them all — Guided by Voices — got its start, not to mention the Greenhornes, New Bomb Turks, Times New Viking, Cloud Nothings and many, many others. There’s something about flat, fertile, churchy Ohio that encourages rebellion, even oddity — remember Pere Ubu and Devo came from here. But there’s also a midwestern full-hearted-ness in even the most confrontational of bands. There’s ragged soul in ragged riffs here, and if you want evidence, look no further than Smug Brothers.
Smug Brothers, out of Dayton, have been at it for two decades, garnering modest success but an engaging catalogue. The band formed…
Tag Archive: Smug Brothers
Here’s another salvo from the power-popping, windmill chording, Nuggets-mod-turned-mildly psychedelic Smug Brothers, a four piece out of the heartland’s lo-fi capitol, Columbus, Ohio. We last ran into the band circa 2023’s In the Book of Bad Ideas, observing “Smug Brothers kick up a jangly, tuneful racket, with brash power chords and sweetly rueful lyrics, battering drums and liquid flourishes of guitar.” That’s all still in play but Stuck on Beta kicks harder and daydreams less. It’s melodic guitar pop with the lines drawn in thick black sharpie, nothing cloudy or indefinite about it.
Take the early single, “Sidewalk Champagne,” which cranks a sirening guitar lick and bumps it up with a bounce of bass. High, not-quite-falsetto vocals keen over it all, but don’t soften the tone.