Artist: Magatha Trysty

Artist: Magatha Trysty

Links: https://www.facebook.com/MagathaTrysty

https://soundcloud.com/magathatrysty/sets/your-clothes-will-wear

With a band name like Magatha Trysty, it's a wonder they don't resort to cleverness more often, because singer Christopher David, in perfect harmony with his wife, Catherine Louise (herself, a Chrissie Hynde-caliber vocalist), sounds completely at home going quirky -- "when I wake up in this hotel bar / with working girls on my MasterCard" or "I'll say I lost you in the war" and "I draw your face on...bits of pages torn from Popular Mechanics" -- with a nasal-tinged voice that's strong in tone and full of character a la They Might Be Giants and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong.

This collection of up-tempo power-pop chord progressions make for standout performances by bassist Billy Blastoff; and the capable piano is rivaled only by the under-employed xylophone/glockenspiel. As promised, Your Clothes Will Wear Themselves is stuffed to the gills with all manner of catchy musical hook and verse. In fact, listening to the first minute of album-opener "Want to Stay" would make most bands trade the one reliable drummer they know for Magatha Trysty's pop musicianship.

Generally speaking, bands avoid cliche by focusing on particularity -- the credit cards and magazines that populate real-life romantic encounters, rather than vague master narratives of love and love lost. It's when Magatha Trysty does so that it delivers on the promise of their genre. And it's here that it all comes together (to wit, the poetic hook of "I'd make you perfect like before / before all of the damage").

*** The author of this review, Jerry Roberts, plays the conga for the following band: http://youtu.be/tMS73-1kCr8