Cayetana

Nervous Like Me

BY Ian GormelyPublished Aug 19, 2014

8
By its very nature, pop-punk is simple and to the point. And while that gives the genre the kind of immediacy that grabs listeners by the ears, bands are often short on long-term staying power.

Philadelphia's Cayetana seem acutely aware of this. Like the Crutchfield sisters, they understand the power in luring listeners in rather than walloping them over the head. Formed barely three years ago, this trio of women turned a lot of heads when they released their first single, "Hot Dad Calendar," earlier this year. Mixing their pop-punk with a healthy dose of indie rock, everything here fulfills the promise of that track and more.

The album's ragged edges belie the plaintive lyrics Augusta Koch sing-speaks throughout its 11 tracks. The confessional tone could get (and has gotten) them lumped in with the current emo revival, but the self-empowerment heart of songs like "Serious Things are Stupid," on which Koch proclaims "I'm at my best when I'm sleeping alone," cuts through the semantics of genre. Nervous Like Me exists in a world beyond such descriptors and is all the better for it.
(Tiny Engines)

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