Harlem: Hippies

Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
Garage rock keeps getting older, but the bands stay the same age. The latest bunch of meticulously tousled youngsters to create good old-fashioned revivalist racket is Harlem, whose second album, Hippies, sounds like it was made by a gaggle of fresh-faced lads who quickly bashed out their latest batch of songs in one take. In other words, it’s pretty much what’s expected—and demanded—from a band like this. At its best, Harlem wrestles fresh pleasures from old formulas, bopping along on slashing guitars and a hip-shaking “We Got The Beat” bassline on “Poolside,” and rubbing the juvenile-delinquent vocals of Michael Coomers and Curtis O’Mara into grade-school harmonies on “Gay Human Bones.”