It must be tempting for new bands in this post-Mac Demarco world to simply de-tune your guitars, pull out the ol’ reel-to-reel, and let the aesthetic do all the heavy lifting. And when you’re selling some vague notion of a specific nostalgia to a generation who almost certainly weren’t around to experience any of the references first-hand, it’s pretty easy to get away with. But that’d be too easy for Magic Potion.
On their debut EP, Melt, they’ve whipped up four songs that feel essential and hooky. The band’s first single (and stand-out on the release), Deep Web, caught the internet’s attention almost immediately for its relaxed yet immediate melodies and melancholic lyricism. “Saw you cry your eyeballs out / made oceans look like puddles for a while,” Frontman Gustaf Montelius sings, in a way that feels like Magic Potion been playing this tune forever and could comfortably play forever more.
Melt is out now on PNKSLM Recordings and Beech Coma, with an album is due at the end of this year. Tuck into it via Bandcamp below:
