To flip the cliché about the Velvet Underground, six million people bought the first Third Eye Blind album and surely some of them started a band. Point being, before they started learning how to namedrop canonical influences, many groups who qualify as "indie" in 2013 likely had formative experiences around the last time buzzy, commercially ambitious, and only vaguely "alternative" guitar rock was still a going, multiplatinum concern. I'd bet that Guards fits that description, and even if they don't, their eager-to-please debut, In Guards We Trust, will certainly appeal to anyone who secretly wishes for the return of the late 90s culture fostered by "120 Minutes" and pre-Clear Channel alt.rock radio. By the same token, the clearly skewed hit-to-filler ratio will trigger fond memories in anyone who visited their used CD store as much as the Tower Records.
By no means is In Guards We Trust a literal recreation of Buzz Bin nostalgia. There are plenty of zippy, palm-muted riffs and crate-digging genre touches: a driving soul rhythm powers the curiously murky opener "Nightmare", "Can't Repair" is blown-out Motown, the coed "Your Man" boasts dark C&W twang. But In Guards We Trust sounds like it lives in 2013, as the emphasis on low-end throughout indicates that hip-hop was a likely framing device. If that sounds like what Cults do, there's good reason: Guards frontman Richie Follin is the brother of Cults' Madeline, and before they shared stages, one can easily imagine the two pop obsessives fighting over the radio dial or remote as kids and eventually trying to top each other as songwriters.
When it comes to writing big hooks, Richie may have the upper hand. Come to think of it, "hooks" doesn't do them justice-- you could reel in baleen whales using the sort of arena-rock gestures "Coming True" and "Giving Out" are working with, and they're all pumped up in some way: big washes of reverb, massed vocals, unison guitar bends. They aren't even remotely original in melody or theme, but if no one else is using them these days, what's stopping Guards?
There's certainly a thrill in such unabashedly anthemic rock music when few bands have an interest in making it, let alone an ability to follow through. But after the fizz of "Silver Lining" and "Give Out" wears out, Follin starts to feel like a jingle writer stuck in the wrong format. At best, the verses, bridges, and instrumental passages feel custodial, doing little to disturb the flow so that the chorus can deliver a proper dynamic boost. Mostly, they just feel like Guards killing time, and Follin's power-pop Madlibs ("If I were to take the lead/ Teach me how to turn the key/ Tell me how to set you free") make the 45 minutes of In Guards We Trust feel significantly longer. Not that we should demand nuance from this sort of big-tent stuff, but by the time those hooks lodge in your memory, they're so vaguely worded-- "we're up and ready to go!" "I feel it giving out/ Your clock is running out," "Now it's all coming true/ What's a boy supposed to do/ With a girl like you?"-- you just wish there was something that convinced you these songs couldn't just as easily have been written about low APR financing or the nutritional utility of Bagel Bites.
The comparison is easy and perhaps unfair, but look at how Cults maintain a perspective and personality that projects outwards through their influences, whereas Guards let their influences substitute for personality. While Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life", Marcy Playground's "Sex & Candy", and the Verve Pipe's "The Freshmen" were and still are seen as innocuous, alt-rock trifles, they have real stories behind them (seriously, Wikipedia them all). As for Guards, whenever the big hook inevitably hits, the celebratory becomes perfunctory, no different than a TGI Friday's wait staff member forcing themselves to sing "Happy Birthday" over a giant plate of loaded potato skins for the twelfth time that night.
