Press info: “‘All Inside Aquarium’ sees the band expanding far beyond their minimalist post-punk origins towards soaring anthemic rock, sans the ‘indie’. Sonically, the band aimed for “this late ’80’s/early 90’s Stone Roses-meets-Janes Addiction thing, with more riffing and guitar solos.”
Where the band’s earlier material took a more explicitly sociopolitical bent, Hozie and Belfilgio’s writing on All Inside Aquarium is deliberately more concerned with the personal, poetics, and play.
Album artwork
TUTV: Bodega never made world-shattering records, and All Inside Aquarium isn’t world-shattering. Bodega always made uncomplicated and galvanizing records, and this one is their most uncomplicated and galvanizing one. A let’s have fun album. And fun we have, folks.
They jump from funky crackerjack rockers (the title track / Weather Me / Pick Up The Check / Slow Train) to easygoing, poppy guitar tunes (Literary World / Oxygen / Olivia) without trying to overdo it in any way whatsoever. Straightforward and simple. Paul Weller would say “that’s entertainment“.
Band: YARD ACT Who: British post-punk outfit from Leeds, fronted by poetic wordsmith James Smith, who catapulted themselves to the top of indie world with
their first 2 longplayers.
TUTV: Their chilling post-punk debut LP The Dark Room, from 2005, is still the one for me. Afterward Editors went down risk-free pop lane. Mind you, they got my attention now and then again, like here with this new urgent tune.
TUTV: OMG! Bad Nerves have you in a headlock from the first crushing chord.
No way to escape. You’re in the middle of a punk tornado, and in the end, you’ll
be completely exhausted. OMG!
Ben Hozie (singer/guitarist), who says to be inspired by Jane’s Addiction and The Stone
Roses about the album: “Let’s go back to melodic tunes, let’s be more of a proper rock band. We were aiming at something larger, warmer, watery, and metaphysical, inspired by the optimistic alt rock of our half-remembered youth.”
TUTV: Bodega never reached the topmost level I expected them to reach after their thumping first LP. And as they are now moving towards the middle-of-the-indie-road
rock I wonder if it will ever happen. All Inside The Aquarium has a rumbustious na-na-na
buzz but isn’t the memorable cut I hoped for.
“I used a couple of the same synths that I’ve still got since the early 90’s.
The beat was made on the sampler I used on my album Truth Is Born of
Arguments from 1995. It was my first time working directly with a rapper,
I’m very happy it was Griff!”
TUTV: Yeah. What’s up, bro? Slow-mo pelvis-swaying time it is. Yeah.
