New Music: Chinese Football, Chick Eye, The Sino Hearts

Chinese Football – Continue? 游戏继续

Chinese Football once again tap into the delicate and bittersweet well of emo pop for their newest LP entitled Continue? – the second LP in a perceived ‘Game Trilogy’ which looks to follow its sensitive yet hot-blooded young adolescent through life’s various trails. If you needed any reminder that the Wuhan startups are the real deal look no further – sprawling, angular, and earnest indie pop that soars and pulls you in close without ever coming off as cheap or trite. As always, there’s a sense of youthful discovery that’s timeless to the band’s sound and they milk it for all it’s worth – one jangled hook and spirited confession after another. A engrossing continuation of Chinese Football’s reign over the indie rock scene here in China. 

Bandcamp: https://chinesefootball.bandcamp.com/album/continue

Xiami: https://www.xiami.com/album/yhXbxca3a32

Netease: https://music.163.com/#/album?id=75727755

Chick Eye 脚疴 – 膚质恋人

There’s glorious madness at play with Chick Eye’s deviantly fun comedy rock proto-grunge opus – a surreal and utterly captivating descent into grit and chaos. Swarmy psychedelic guitar licks that counter lead singer Kan Gui’s methadone’s strung-out, methadone-laced vocals, each song comes off like a circus act that juggles genre, song structure, and lyrical content – spewing it out with humor and enough bite to warrant a hospital visit. It’s primitive, careless, absurd, bare and poetic in it’s own twisted way. There’s a sexiness and playfulness to the fractured psyche on display here that slowly sucks you into its orbit – the deranged love child of Kurt Cobain and Mac DeMarco filtered through Zappa on downers. 

Xiami: https://www.xiami.com/album/nnlT9K858e0

The Sino Hearts – Leave The World Behind 

A burst of upbeat, unadulterated power pop that’s fresh, crisp, and tons of fun. Taking the dynamic charm of some of power pop’s greatest heroes combined with the precision of 60s beat groups, there’s not an ounce of fat on the band’s full length LP (just released here on DOG Records and Indie Works here in China) – each and every track is maxed out in terms of musicality, wavering together one tightly wound hook after another, guiding you the whole way. No filler, no bullshit antics – just unabashed guitar-led singles that ride a bubbly punk wave attitude and aim straight for the earworms.

Bandcamp: https://thesinohearts.bandcamp.com/album/leave-the-world-behind

Netease: https://music.163.com/#/album?id=75833204