#950 Speedy Ortiz - Major Arcana

This might be my first LocalMusicBoston and Pitchfork BNM. Good job MA!

Sadie Dupuis has earned her instant reputation as a whip-smart, fishhooked vocalist, and her barbs are driven with piledriver force by the dead-simple crush of her backing band. The songs all lurch in a single direction, growing in momentum inevitably, building to a Built to Spill monolith and then puffing out like the best of the 90's, but what the songs lack structural in guile they make up in brutal efficiency. On the small scale, every guitar tone is better than it has to be; on the song scale, ever payoff justifies its buildup; even the album arc is far better sequenced than your average 90's rocker, with plenty of follow-up punches on the back half (Plough!) and even an epic closing bustup.

If you're going to make this album, a Liz Phair / Nirvana / Breeders kinda stompy shouter of yore, and you're going to stick to your guns about keeping the riffs fist-simple, this is how you do it, with a stiff wrist and silk fingers bristling with prickers 4/5