Strawberry Milk reimagined pop punk by a quaint and quirky lens with their newest single Katherine the Nice; a observe that tastes like somebody turned Impartial Milk Resort’s lo-fi earnestness right into a strawberry shake and laced it with sticky-sweet stridency. There’s a wierd sense of reverence and rebel braided by the sound; nothing in Katherine the Nice feels untouched by irony or coronary heart. It’s the sound of a band that understands the right way to flip cutesy capriciousness into one thing significant with out ever dropping its edge.
Who would count on a rising school rock outfit, already cementing their identify throughout the New Jersey circuit, to pen a compassionate, surrealist observe by the imagined soul of a royal icon? But, from the tender inflexions of vulnerability within the vocals to the restrained euphony of the instrumentals, which solely crescendo right into a woozy alt-indie-rock swell, the one thrives in that pressure between eccentricity and emotional sincerity. It’s as theatrical as it’s disarmingly intimate.
Since forming in Princeton in 2022, Strawberry Milk have turn out to be native favourites for good motive. Their sound dips into the prog-psychedelic legacies of Genesis and Rush, pulls threads from the rhythmic wanderlust of Sting and Dave Matthews Band, after which dusts all of it with the melodic polish of REM and The Killers. But, it’s the “uniquely Strawberry Milk” synthesis that makes them such an irresistible anomaly. With Katherine the Nice main the cost, their forthcoming releases Social Damselfly and Messy Masterpiece promise to color much more curious colors throughout their debut album, Within the Zoo.
Katherine the Nice is now accessible on all main streaming platforms, together with Spotify.
Evaluation by Amelia Vandergast
