Trevor Bates follows muse far and wide with new work
SEAN CLANCY
Little Rock musician Trevor Bates isn’t afraid of a little genre-surfing. From the ’80s indie-fuzz bombs on “First Animal,” to the garage-punk of “Ritual Wants,” the shambolic pedal-steel Americana of “On the Golden Precipice” and “In the Eleventh House” and the trippy prog-rock of “And Other Lesser Feats,” Bates has giddily followed his muse far and wide.
For his latest, “Brief Pearls,” which is out Friday, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist has conjured up an LP of scruffy power pop confections that bring to mind bands like Guided by Voices and Teenage Fanclub. Bates isn’t kidding with that title, either, as he manages to zip through the record’s 10 tracks in just a smidge over 19 minutes.
The album opens with buzzy banger “Wide Awake,” followed by the woozy lope of “Fall in Love.” Bates slows things down later on the gentle piano ballad “Daytime Believer” and the acoustic “Not Enough,” which sounds like a lost demo from Big Star’s “#1 Record.” In fact, most of the album leans toward acoustic-based songs about love and relationships, like the autumnal “Her Love;” the desperate sweetness of “Out of Control” and album closer “Lost It.”
Bates, who sings, plays bass, acoustic guitar, pedal steel, piano, Mellotron and Hammond organ on the album, is joined by frequent collaborators Aaron Shaneyfelt on drums and guitarist Charles Wyrick. It was produced by Nathan Moore at Rosebud Records, Little Rock, who has worked on Bates’ other projects.
After his latest dalliance with prog rock, he began looking for inspiration from sources a little less grandiose.
“I’ve always been a huge power pop fan,” he said late last month. “I love Big Star and Badfinger.”
Besides those power pop titans, he’s been listening to current like-minded artists like Oregon-based Mo Troper and Philadelphia band 2nd Grade.
“The 2nd Grade stuff is what I was listening to when I was writing this,” Bates said. “My last release was, like, a 16-minute prog rock song! So I wanted to write songs that had no filler and were super catchy.”
The album also marks a concerted effort by Bates to address more vulnerable issues with his lyrics, including facing old heartbreaks and emotions from when he was a kid.
“Most of my lyrical content has been esoteric,” he said. “This was very much an exercise in writing things that I’ve experienced. I also wanted it to be a little juvenile; these are high school, junior high feelings, like not feeling secure in a relationship. A lot of these songs are channeling that adolescent insecurity.”
The project eventually ballooned to about 20 tracks before Bates began paring it back to the lean 10 that make up “Brief Pearls.”
“The ones that I didn’t include on the album, I decided to release them as singles and B-sides and I’ve been dropping them on Bandcamp,” he said of the online record store. “I still wanted to put them out.”
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2024-11-08T08:00:00.0000000Z
2024-11-08T08:00:00.0000000Z
https://edition.nwaonline.com/article/282733412383969
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