Lesser (Known) Lights #5

Sobs – Air Guitar

I’ve mentioned Sobs before, and hopefully they’ll become big stars, so I want to say something more substantive before I don’t have a series to place them in. (Classic Songs of My Late Middle Age Revisited?) They’re an adorably dorky band from Singapore, making a version of pop that blends elements of bedroom, jangle and garage with the kind of awkward sharing that even Olivia Rodrigo in her most confessional mode is too cool and glib for. The lyrics are loopily vague at times, but generally fall into the “first love fears, confusions and disappointments” and “trying-to-figure-shit-out young person” categories. Front lady Celine Autumn’s voice is disconcertingly little girl high, but it lends credibility to her apparent bewilderment about the entanglements she finds herself in. There is no escaping the bubblegum of it all, and they can be kind of twee, but the guitars are just too forward to be truly twee. At times it feels like Celine is channelling the cultural appropriation version of Gwen Stefani, and as if to prove that is exactly what she’s doing, the record’s last track is a cover of Gwen’s “Cool”.

I love the bass line on “Dealbreaker”, and there are songs with tinker toy sounds, fuzzy guitars and the kind of shredding that comes from guitarists who feel obligated to give it a try but their hearts aren’t really in it. Sobs are too normal to be pretentious, and although the production is of high quality, it’s not so slick that you can’t imagine the teen movie scenario of a garage band finding their way when the nerdy girl steps up to take command of the mic. My favourite tracks are “Air Guitar” and “Burn Book”, which both seem to best blend the rock star dreams of the men in the band with Celine’s manic pixie dream girl knockoffs. But Celine is no one’s muse but her own, and she has a confidence in her artistry that her narrators lack in their lives. Sobs will evolve, and maybe I won’t follow them, but their hopeful-sounding pop is a perfect tonic for a grim day right now – just don’t listen too closely to her confused words.