Stepdad

Wildlife Pop

10
10/10
Del LeFevre | June 14, 2012

Matt Cain is currently pitching a perfect game in the 8th inning as I type this. I find myself pausing with each pitch...but I refuse to pause my iTunes. What could possibly be so important on my iTunes that it trump the audio of a perfect game? I mean a perfect game is history, right? It's baseball immortality.

Well I just so happen to be listening to a perfect album, Stepdad's Wildlife Pop. I'm as locked in on the twelve popped out synth and falsetto rockers as I am to each painted on the black fastball and each Bugs Bunny change piece that Cain throws at the helpless Astros. Looking at that hapless and hopeless Astros lineup I'm thinking that me calling Stepdad's album a perfect album to be a greater accomplishment.

Wildlife Pop is a 12 inning perfect game of blistering fastballs, big hooky curves thrown by some unassuming screwballs with gold gloves and golder voices. Baseball analogies and puns FTW.

I can't say enough great things about this album. The entire thing is like one big sonic Percocet. There's spaced out otherworldly floating sense to it. Who doesn't love embracing energetic qualities that make you want to be more alive than you ever felt humanly possible? Basic primal party vibes are floating all around this LP.

9th inning. 1 Out.

Why am I still taking about Stepdad? That's how good it is. Flyball. 2 outs.

This album is so fucking good it is making the last out of a perfect game an afterthought! This isn't supposed to happen to a lifelong baseball fan. Strike at the knees 0-1. I can't help it. Ball. I love this album so much I've even considered getting tickets to the Warped Tour. At the knees 1-2. Arias from deep third.

Perfect game.

Now that that is over can we get back to focusing on Stepdad? Sure Cain's performance was unreal...but come on Humber threw a perfect game this year too. NO ONE has thrown out a more dominant perfect album this year than Stepdad. Don't believe me check out the lead single and lead track Must Land Running below. That's Mr. Juxtaposition himself, lead singer Mark Tafel, getting his creep on in the video while the song plays (with lyrics!). Dude can stare back at me, slightly panting, all he wants because this opener is the perfect pace setter for the entire album...thus the title Must Land Running. The screams, driving synths, and spaced out sounds let the listener know to buckle up for a ride on some beams of sonic light.

Feel it all around you.

Do yourself a favor and grab this album (or at the very least stream all of their other lyric videos on youtube) and get on board with these fearless freaks now, because I fully expect this album to make countless end of year top lists when all is said and done. For you baseball buffs let the record state that on the week of June 10th 2012 history was made. Two perfect games were thrown on back to back days: Stepdad and Matt Cain.

...but there's an asterik on Must Land Running because I'm pretty sure the Stepdad dudes are on HGH. How else do you explain how they went from good to great?

Who cares if they juiced, Wildlife Pop is infectiously hooky oddball pop at its finest. Chicks dig the longballs.