Rearrange The Clouds In The Sky For You

Veruca Salt “Eyes On You”

Last year I saw the original lineup of Veruca Salt play together on their first tour since 1997 and was amazed by how much power and chemistry they have together after so much time apart. This year I’m amazed by Ghost Notes, the new album they made once they got back together, which is just as good and sometimes even better than they were in their heyday. It makes me so happy that Veruca Salt have returned at exactly the point in time when their influence would be most apparent in younger bands, and when enough time has passed that people who were around in the ’90s can really understand how painfully underrated and pointlessly mocked they were back then. Rocking well is the best revenge.

Ghost Notes is a great record in large part because the band aren’t trying to reinvent themselves, but instead tried to reconnect with the things that made them special in the first place. Chief among those things is the rapport of Louise Post and Nina Gordon, and their ability to alternate between sharply contrasting one another and blurring together like this Cool Girl hive mind. But there’s also the core of their aesthetic, which boils down to “write highly melodic pop songs, and play them with the raw power of metal.” I’ve written before about how they more than any other band epitomized the aesthetics of alt-rock, and it’s still true now. The genre is all about melody and dynamics, and in giving you the raw thrill of ROCKING OUT. The heavy parts of the best alt-rock songs aren’t just cathartic – they feel liberating, like you’re just stomping on a pedal and immediately feeling free of tension and overloaded with joy.

“Eyes On You” is my favorite song on Ghost Notes, and in another time and another place, it’d be a huge hit. The hooks are amazing, but the feeling of it is even more potent. This is basically a song about figuring out exactly where you stand with someone, and trying to make the difficult decision of whether or not it’s worth holding on to them. It’s an emotional cost-benefit analysis, and I don’t think it comes to a real conclusion. The song just lives in that moment of being totally unsure whether your passion leans more towards anger or love.

Buy it from Amazon.