In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing.
A few months back—in the ceaseless combing of the blogosphere that is the sad, Sisyphean lot of the music journalist—something grabbed my ears that I couldn’t soon shake. The song was “Mallory” by a new band out of London called The History Of Apple Pie. A couple things struck me about this song: 1) It was by a band called The History Of Apple Pie, which takes some guts. 2) Somehow this band sounds sweeter than its name would indicate. The best thing about “Mallory,” though, is the sour, sweaty musk that lurks at the far periphery of its saccharine center. Between the syrup-lipped vocals of Stephanie Min and the churning, chiming guitars of Jerome Watson and Aslam Ghauri, the song combines the pangs of lovelorn euphoria and tooth decay. Even better, it’s a brazen, blaring ode to the double-dip melodicism of ’90s shoegaze—particularly the point in the decade when pioneers like Lush and Ride began to lift their goth-tinted veils to let the occasional slab of sparkling, upbeat pop slip through. The History Of Apple Pie’s debut full-length, Out Of View, comes out on January 29, and if my initial spin of the disc is any indication, “Mallory” is just the tip of the fruit-flavored iceberg.