Eva Grace Hendricks sounds like she broke into a Party City store, sucked some helium tanks dry, and scream-sang her darkest secrets into the plastic microphone of a karaoke rental. Charly Bliss is Hendricks (guitar/vocals), her brother Sam (drums), Spencer Fox (guitar), and Dan Shure (bass). They formed in New York City in 2012, and released their first EP, Soft Serve, a couple years later.
Listening to the band’s brand-new debut LP, Guppy, feels like returning to your childhood home and finding an unopened, decades-old can of soda in the closet—it’s a time capsule of the explosive, preternaturally sweet energy of teenage years. Charly Bliss applies the anthemic musical principles of ’90s/early ’00s bands like Veruca Salt, Weezer, and Paramore to overly carbonated, emo-tinged power-pop with big guitar swells and self-described “bubblegum-grunge” hooks.
At first, it’s a lot to handle. But Hendricks cuts the bubbly sweetness with brutally honest lyrics that capture our lifelong ride on the Slip ’N Slide of human emotion. Take, for instance, her admission at the beginning of “DQ”: “I laughed when your dog died/It is cruel but it’s true/Take me back, kiss my soft side/Does he love me most now that his dog is toast?” Hendricks spits out LOL-worthy one-liners like “Stuck my gum on his soul” and sings about mustering her will to live in the same song (“Black Hole”), and dedicates an entire track to her therapist (“Ruby”). With Guppy, Charly Bliss builds a fort of nostalgic sounds where it’s safe to let these intense feelings into the light.