Label: Pure Noise Records
Released: 28th April 2023
Anyone who’s seen Spanish Love Songs live might have been lucky enough to see them tackle Phoebe Bridger’s astonishingly beautiful ‘Funeral’ with surprising gusto and pathos. And, while they’ve not been ones to rely too heavily on cover songs, ‘Doom & Gloom Sessions’ is a suitably enjoyable stopgap as we await another twelve rounds of existential dread from the Californian punks.
Drawing from their lockdown endeavour, which saw them record a cover a month, voted for by fans and Patreon subscribers, ‘Doom & Gloom Sessions’ is wide-ranging, hitting indie-rock favourites that perhaps don’t seem apparent touchpoints for a grizzled pop-punk act.
So, it means there are three largely faithful takes on The Killers’ stomping ‘Smile Like You Mean It’, Rilo Kiley’s brilliant ‘Portions For Foxes’ and Jimmy Eat World’s wildly underrated ‘Futures’, while a fourth – a stripped-back version of Grandaddy’s sleeper hit, ‘Now It’s On’ – is more of a departure from the original, but just as enjoyable.
Dylan Slocum’s panicked vocals work perfectly on all of them – even ‘Portions For Foxes’, which seemed a stretch on paper – but especially on ‘Futures’, adding an urgency and edge missing from Jim Adkins’ softer tones.With only four songs, it remains painfully short, and it’s worth mentioning, that although these songs are great, there are plenty more tracks they could have included, culled from their Patreon and elsewhere. These include a previously recorded version of ‘Funeral’ and brilliant takes on Death Cab For Cutie’s ‘Blacking Out The Friction’, Blink 182’s ‘I Miss You’, and ‘Riches and Wonders’ by the Mountain Goats. Maybe a second volume will help to fill in the gaps…
