The last stragglers awake at a high school friend’s party gathered around a sticky table. The person you like is leaving town. Summer tinges with the specific melancholy found in the suburbs. All of these tiny feelings make up the 24 minutes of Taster. The debut from local duo Hovvdy offers unfiltered sadcore, a quietly personal, lo-fi exploration of the enormous ennui blooming in small towns between the sprawl of Texan land and sky. “I’ll walk you home/ You say you’re tired of talking to people you don’t know,” promises standout “Problem,” its narrator considering why he won’t leave his hometown. “Try Hard” is a disappointed, dysfunctional love song taking place inside of a car driving in circles around the block. Fuzzy, downbeat-driven emo with buried vocals, Taster builds a pretty, unfussy landscape that feels a lot like being young, sad, and hiding in your bedroom.
This article appears in June 3 • 2016.