Diners, Mo Troper, Dogbreth, Growing Pains
Recommended
Phoenix's Diners make casually celebratory power-pop music. It's a melancholic feel-good—mid-tempo muted bass grooves, twee-folk sensibilities, beach party riffing, and the occasional Thin Lizzy-inspired mini solo. Diners' songs are fascinated with the minutiae of phone calls and mixtapes and nice breezes, but somehow sidestep the insincere innocence and frustrating privilege that occupies much of the music that can be described as twee. They create well-crafted pop songs that aren't terribly weighed down by the burden of self-importance. What Diners does best is offer a humbler narration on quaint simplicity—a dream of a pre-jaded existence that's worth escaping to.
by Joshua James Amberson