The Perms are Canadian indie power poppers who have just released their 4th album. Keeps You Up When You're Down. The band says these are the best songs they've ever written and I have to agree.
Let me get out of the way the requisite comparisons. For isntance, the very first track, "Give Me All Your Lovin'" reminded me instantly of Urge Overkill's debut disk. On first listen a few other bands sprang instantly to mind: Weezer, Foo Fighers and Sloan. Additional spins, and there's been a lot of additional spins let me tell you, have brought up echoes of some modern power poppers like The Posies, Fountains of Wayne and The Pills.
The album is driven by energetic, guitar driven, pop songs, and features great songwriting, clever lyrics, plentiful hooks, and tight arrangements. The song featured here "As You Were" is just one gem among many, with "You Don't Know" and "Big Mistake" being a couple of other really great standouts. If you like indie flavored power pop you will love this disk. The pace is fast, the intensity high, and the hills and valleys are clearly intentionally designed to shift the listener's heartrate at just the right times. Before you know it you've blown through a dozen of this year's best power pop tunes. (And they've got a pretty cool website too.)
