Atlanta’s Ultra Lights are a nostalgia act, if only because they make scuzzy millennial garage rock in the year 2026, when not even the Strokes seem very much interested in sounding like the Strokes. This shit is classic rock now: Is This It is 25 years old, Brooklyn is no longer the hipster center of the universe, and those Converses you used to wear now need insoles. Atlanta may not be an obvious hub for upcoming indie rock acts, but on their debut, Pleasure’s All Yours, Ultra Lights are doing their damn best to make Atlanta sound like early-2000s New York City in a way that would make John Rocker’s head explode.
A quarter of a century later, the zeitgeist has so far been reluctant to revive that early aughts indie rock sound. Ultra Lights arrive with the chops and the experience to make the throwback feel authentically lived-in. Like many projects, Ultra Lights began as a way for singer-songwriter John Robinson to stave off pandemic boredom. Robinson, 42, is something of a grizzled veteran of the post-Strokes indie rock boom, having lived a whole previous life in the 2010s playing slacker-punk anthems as Turf War and Illegal Drugs. By the time those bands broke up, he had spent the better part of a decade in music and seemed content to hunker down in Augusta to raise a family, though he never stopped writing music. As Ultra Lights took shape, he enlisted his partner Leela Hoehn—an illustrator who only learned to play the guitar a few years ago—to join the band, along with bassist Alex Wharton and drummer Gus Fernandez.
Recorded with Kris Sampson (Omni’s Souvenir, Balkans) at his Sampson Sound Studios in Atlanta, Pleasure’s All Yours hits like a six pack of Miller High Life on a hot Southern day. You’re not going to find any alt-country flourishes here—you’ll have to travel a few hours north to Asheville for that. It’s not exactly Southern rock either, although on songs like “Bad Feeling” or “Good Enough” one can imagine Robinson reluctantly finding some inspiration from those early Kings of Leon records. What he’s really doing is pulling a thread connecting Johnny Thunder, the Replacements, Pavement, Parquet Courts, and (most obviously) the Strokes. This is Robinson’s wheelhouse, and he’s very good at knowing what makes for a catchy indie rock tune. The hooks on “Nostalgia” (the only repeat from last year’s self-titled EP) and the head-bopping highlight “Diamond Dreams” never go stale, and the album never loses momentum, save for the acoustic intro fakeout on the sly “Just Like You Want.”
A bit of playful nihilism sifts through Pleasure’s All Yours, as Robinson’s insecurities come in and out of view. He’s got nightmares, he’s got damage, and on the title track he’s got a curse and he’s telling everyone around. “It’s a pretty nice day for a kick in the face/And if you like it so much you should take my place,” he dares on “Bad Feeling” with a cynicism that can only come from experience. On “Wild on the Outside,” he’s like the regular at a bar looking over to a gaggle of twentysomethings and smiling to himself because he knows that this might be the least jaded they’ll ever feel. “Where does all the time go?” he wonders. “I bought a ticket to ride but I don’t really like it anymore.” But as on most of the record, Robinson delivers his words with a wink and a smirk and it’s hard to tell whether he’s taking the piss. Even the album title feels Westerbergian in its snotty playfulness. The record’s most memorable (and wince-inducing) line might be on “What’s Wrong,” in which Robinson sings in a bit of self-aware parody, “I wanna grow up and wear a guitar/And get Botox on my balls.”
There’ve been plenty of Stroke-alikes through the years (remember the Soft Pack? the Postelles?), and it’s to Ultra Lights’ credit that they’ve found such a convincing update of a sound that threatened to become as played out as post-Nirvana grunge in the mid ’90s. There weren’t many bands in 2001 that sounded like an opening act at CBGB’s, and there aren’t a whole lot now, which perhaps makes Pleasure’s All Yours’ retro sound refreshing by default. But no matter how many birthday candles on your cake, none of this would work if the songs weren’t there. Ultra Lights are living the fantasy of reliving your youth knowing what you know now, and on Pleasure’s All Yours, they’re turning back the clocks to make lo-fi garage rock feel fun again.
