Sharp Pins : Radio DDR
I spent nearly every Wednesday during my four years of college wearing the felt off of an office chair behind the mixing board of my alma mater’s campus radio station, spinning indie rock deep cuts and perusing the disintegrating sleeves in its decades-old vinyl library. In between the occasional IDM glitch track and post-punk deep cut, most of my setlists comprised hook-laden underground earworms from the likes of Guided by Voices, Sparklehorse, various affiliates of the Elephant 6 collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Apples In Stereo, Beulah) and the icons of melody from which they descended: Big Star, The Beatles, The Kinks and the like. And had they existed 20 years earlier, Sharp Pins would have unquestionably been part of the regular rotation.
Recalling an age when “lo-fi” meant pop songs recorded on four-track analog rather than downtempo beats with an anime avatar, Sharp Pins offer as perfect an encapsulation of a classic albeit ageless power pop sound on sophomore release Radio DDR. The solo project of Lifeguard‘s Kai Slater, Sharp Pins removes that band’s taut and abrasive post-hardcore brawn in favor of Rickenbacker jangle, sweetly melodic vocals and heart-on-sleeve lyrics about girls. Yet however genuine the youthful naiveté feels—particularly when Slater sings a line like “With a girl like mine/All I ever do is cry“—every song is impeccably crafted, the work of a pop savant whose multiple outstanding projects are beginning to feel a little like showing off.
Then again, who am I to object to too much of a good thing? The 43 minutes of Radio DDR are rife with moments of Technicolor brilliance and bright, summery hooks, Slater’s songwriting frequently displaying a subtle sophistication beneath his contagious melodies. The 12-string shimmer of “Circle All the Dots” gives way to a mesmerizing series of chord changes, while Slater’s echoing vocals fill out the negative space in the already supercharged and riff-blazing “When You Know.” Even when things take a turn for the peculiar, as when Slater pitches his vocals higher on “Lorelei,” the overall effect nonetheless works in the context of its hissy fuzz-pop jangle, a gentle bump of helium psychedelia to achieve levitation if not necessarily liftoff.
As much of the oxygen on Radio DDR is consumed by electrified stompers like “Is It Better,” and rightfully so given that the song is pop perfection, Slater saves ample space for quieter, more intimate acoustic strummers like “Sycophant.” Its sweetly pastoral plucks might remind you of “Thirteen,” while Slater’s wordless “doo-doo-doo-doo-doo” chorus offers the most obliquely affecting moment nestled between brighter and brasher moments of plugged-in glory. It’s the kind of song I might have queued up at 5:57 p.m. on a Wednesday evening as I signed off for the evening, grabbed a burrito and sauntered off to film class.
Label: Perrenial/K
Year: 2025
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Sharp Pins : Radio DDR
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