Honey - Mock Pop preview review

A little bit ago, I got an email about a new album by a Pittsburgh band that I had never heard of before. Honey is a three-piece guitar/bass/drums 90's alternative kinda band. It looks like they released an album back in 2015, so this isn't a totally new band. The new album came out today on Wild Kindness Records, located in Pittsburgh, and it is called Mock Pop.


Three tracks from Mock Pop are up on their Bandcamp page. "Send Me No Flowers" seems to be the intended single, and it is a great track! It's a fuller and longer kind of song that might have been written by Robert Pollard, but it also sounds like some later Cure or Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks, maybe even like The Cult. It's got the loud/soft/loud dynamics of Nirvana, with a good fuzz guitar sound, very cool bridge, and excellent vocals.

"Drag Dealer" is another one of the tracks. It doesn't start as strong as "Send Me No Flowers", but once the guitar solo kicks in, the song soars high and continues that way. The guitars are really excellent on here, but there are some good vocal lines at times too. Some cool detuned sounds end it on a Sonic Youth sort of note.

Last we have "Mallrat's Dream", a glittery realm of pale red lights, recalling both A Flock of Seagulls and, more so, Comsat Angels. This is a great track! I used to go to the grocery store at night on existential journeys, and this reminds me of those times or when I was little and my grandmother and I did the same thing going to Kmart, Ames, Hills, and some malls in the North Hills. There's a hurt and a loss/lost here. "It's only existence", and that's the truth for sure. This song is a little more compressed, but it still rocks.

From what I have heard, Mock Pop is a great album. It has some post-punk influence to it's alt-rock sound, which helps keep it fresh. The production is good; it isn't too compressed, and it isn't too bare like some of my early Satyr/Elfheim albums. It really recalls the first two Comsat Angels albums, favorites of mine and semi-unknown, though I wonder if that was actually an influence or not. I'm gonna be on the lookout to see this band live; if they are anything like these three songs, it is sure to be a great set! Mock Pop, or at least the three songs I've heard, get a Good. I hope to hear the whole album soon.