Album Review: Typhoid Rosie – This Is Now

Brooklyn based outfit Typhoid Rosie are set to release their third LP, This Is Now, that follows up on their 2013 debut, The Music Album, and 2015’s Hearts Bleed Goodbye. The band describe themselves as delivering punk and indie grit with infectious pop hooks, but for me that doesn’t truly capture what they’re about. Their latest album sees them blending a mix of styles and influences, these are drawn from across the decades to create an album that draws you into it’s welcoming grasp from the opening gang chorus of the first track.

Sailing On is the perfect start to This Is Now, infectious gang chorus woahs compete with a driving riff that just hook you into the song, from here they put their collective feet on the gas for What Have You Done? that is a glorious slice of high tempo indie punk. The album continues to mix the heady ingredients from the punk and indie scenes to impressive effect, whether it’s the Ramones pop of Belong To Somebody, the fractured indie of Broken Man, Happiness and Pieces, the welcome return to their central core of upbeat indie punk with Diamonds In The Snow, the discordant rock ‘n roll of Take It Away and the album’s title track to the straight up indie pop of Come On Baby.

This Is Now is an ironic album title given that the album appears to take it’s cues largely from the indie scene of the early 1980’s, but that isn’t a criticism as this is an album that contains a oddly hypnotic quality, everything from the slightly off key deadpan vocal delivery from Rosie Rebel, the lo-fi approach to the delivery and the fuzz driven guitars casts a spell that gives the album an irresistible quality that is indefinable, and in much the same way that I find The Duke Spirit and UV-TV, as well as acts from the dawn of the indie scene such as The Shop Assistants and The Primtives, addictive, Typhoid Rosie are a band I find flawed yet strangely compelling.

This Is Now can be pre-ordered via Bandcamp here

Typhoid Rosie‘s website can be found here