Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger! - Bloom (2024) [new release]

My petty attempts at writing about music might’ve been even worse 10+ years ago than they still are in the present but at least there’s little need for me being too embarrassed about most of the music i’ve picked back then. Case in point, the new LP of italian group Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, the first new music after six to seven years of silence by the group that had the questionable honor of being the subject of the very first 12XU blog post ever (the german language section that is, which goes back to the year 2013 rather than the english section which is less than half as old). Despite their slow pace of output you can’t accuse them of lacking staying power, that’s for sure! Their sound’s progression over the years makes perfect sense to me as well, their excellent 2013 Forever Young LP kinda channeling the bygone late 2000s / early 2010s era of noise pop and fuzz punk groups á la No Age, Wavves and Male Bonding, which then morphed into a more relaxed, indie rock-leaning vibe with on their 2017 album Corners. With this new one, they finally settle into some ultra-classic shoegaze territory with just a hint of post grunge added to the mix, Bailterspace and Swervedriver being the the best comparison i can come up with. Here they slow things down even further without ever coming across as sleepy or boring - it takes a rare amount of elaborate construction work and song-crafting prowess to pull this shit off successfully and these italians deliver on it in droves, more than any other group has done in recent years as it’s been a rather sad decade for the genre so far if you ask me, in which most of these groups certainly have all their effect pedals in place while lacking the songs, energy and vision to do anything for me other than gently lulling me to sleep. This one, it sounds kinda oldschool while absolutely not Slowdive-ish and that’s like a breath of fresh air to me in these days.