I’m very, very late to the Say Sue Me party, and I’ve been kicking myself so hard that my Couch to 5K journey has been nipped in the bloody-shinned bud. Which is fine because I now have more time to enjoy Say Sue Me’s new EP Time Is Not Yours.
The title track is as bright and breezy as happy hour in Central Perk. Do fictional cafés have happy hours? Anyway, you’ll want to tell all your friends about the joyous chorus and Britpop wind down. Lead single ‘Vacation’ begins with a Smashing Pumpkins/Weezer intro then dives into a Lynyrd Skynrd mini hoedown before Sumi Choi on vocals restores some semblance of calm. An ever-so-soft shout out must go to Kim Hanjoo from Silica Gel, who is the Nina Persson to Sumi Choi’s James Dean Bradfield.
The opening riff on second single ‘In This Mess’ has the clanging clarity of The Cult’s ‘She Sells Sanctuary’. The bass that enters a minute in is pure ‘Leave Them All Behind’ by Ride, and the vocals are as gentle as My Bloody Valentine’s Bilinda Butcher’s. There’s more propulsive Ride-like bass on ‘Mexico’, which is a wordless but nonetheless thrilling jam to listen to while getting ready for the festival. ‘Bone Pink’ brings the EP to a mellow close. It begins with Syd Barret chords and some ‘do doos’ before becoming a shimmering lo-fi singalong to make Beabadoobee consider packing it in.
I’m writing this on the 29th anniversary of the release of the Longpigs’ album The Sun is Often Out. In the absence of a reunion tour, go and see Say Sue Me instead – they’re on tour in the UK next week, starting in Bristol on 6th May. South Korean surf rock is a lot more fun than pretending it’s 1996.
Time Is Not Yours is out 30th April via Damnably
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Review by Neil Laurenson
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