Into It. Over It.'s Twelve Towns series is nearly wrapped up, so it's worthwhile to look into a few of the past installments before the hype train has to move on to his eventual proper full-length. This particular volume features Pswingset, who I last heard on a split with the excellent Bearings and have since surmised they named themselves after the Rescue song. Obscure lift.

II.OI. kick it off with "Cambridge, Ma". It's a crisp, intimate acoustic narrative from Evan Weiss where he spills his guts about a friend's most personal plans in both speakers. The point seems to be that he knows more about the friend than the friend's mom does, and when the verse suddenly ends, the track picks up a number of overlapping layers, building into a pretty floater straight out of the Owen playbook–except, where Mike Kinsella could let a song go seven minutes long easy (at least on older albums), this one just ends at the 1:44 mark after thinning out, Weiss cooing over it softly. It's kind of a tease, but it's a beautiful, short opener nonetheless. Weiss historians will enjoy "Orlando, Fl", as the full-band number is a warm, lower-fi rock number with a modestly delivered hook and little fits of curt riffs.

It's pretty lazy reviewing to repeat oneself, but something I said in the Bearings review seems largely applicable here: Pswingset remind me of more recent UK emo revival bands like Puzzle or Pictures Paint Words, with scrappy, '90s-style emo recorded raw. "Everything That Was Tired" opens their side, and honestly, it's kind of a throwaway. The recording is just really, really rough, and it turns the song's otherwise potentialy cool, jagged drift into a merely decent riff repeated beyond its value. "Thanks for the Record" is better; it's considerably stripped down yet manages to develop a subtly spacier tone, a mix of toned-down acoustic and electric guitars with emotive but restrained vocals, almost going a Mineral/Jimmy Eat World route in the process.

#2 in the Twelve Towns series is a winner for Weiss. I've heard far better from Pswingset, but at least one of their tracks is a sweetly sad contributor.

STREAM
Into It. Over It. / Pswingset split