Back in July, Greensboro, North Carolina’s Charm released a charismatic little single by the name of “Used to Say.” The song has a warm and flowing groove that has the buoyant quality of sitting in an intertube while it floats down a lazy, shallow stream while black-capped chickadee warble at you from passing trees.
The buzzy little bop was a welcome summer jam and hinted at good things to come from the group in the future. It was also a slightly divergent follow-up to their Acrobat Unstable release from last year, the absorbing Sugar Mountain EP.
Buy Stream Charm’s single “Used to Say” below:
Sugar Mountain is a short, three-song collection that no discussion of Charm can proceed without circling back to. It’s an incredibly tight little pop record with hints to classic shoegaze, garage-pop, and R ‘n’ B sprinkled throughout.
The album opens with a juicy, reverb-quenched chord progression that slips into a dreamy, sunshine bleached groove on “Donnie,” a song that develops more of a patina of rare soul the longer it’s pop-excellence is allowed to unfurl and reveal itself. “Pt 2” is a perfect, morning-after lament in which a reverberating solo piano accompaniment is the only companion to the singer, plaintively nursing his emotional hangover.
And finally, closer “Bring Me Back Around” has a sharp and suave, romantic quality to its dusty, echoey kick-up that feels downstream from both Ride and ’90s mainstays Del Amitri. What are you waiting for? Give Sugar Mountain a taste!
Buy and stream Sugar Mountain below via Bandcamp:
Buy Charm’s music on cassette from Acrobate Unstable here.
