I got my first guitar for my 13th birthday. It was a dark blue Schecter. I don’t play it much anymore, but I’ve never parted with it over the years. After I discovered the endless guitar tabs on the internet, I would sit in my bedroom (in Spokane) all day playing along to my favorite 90s and early 2000s indie rock albums: Weezer, Foo Fighters, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Death Cab for Cutie. When I listened to GOOD JOB.’s newest single, “Aftertaste,” the first thought that jumped into my head was that it sounded like my favorite music from those early years of high school.
The production hits at all the best markings of an early 2000s indie rock classic, from Jon Stephens’s rolling tom fills and sloshy hats to Nick Swanson’s loosely chugging bass groove. The chunky, distorted bar chords and tremolo-laced lead guitar swirls around lead singer Mikey Perez as he nonchalantly contemplates love and youth: “Maybe we’re still too young to know. Should we plant these seeds and see what grows?”
“Aftertaste” sounds refreshingly like a real band. No computers, drum machines, or synthesizers — just the machinations of a group of friends in some dimly lit basement, surrounded by a couple of six-packs of Rainier tallboys, big booming drums, fuzzy bass, and distorted guitars. And from the moment the clean bar chords begin playing, “Aftertaste” sounds like youth. It’s reminiscent of that era of piling into the biggest car one of your friends had, driving to some small, sweaty venue, and listening to music played too loud, surrounded by strangers bumping into each other.
After a year of no live music, I’m really looking forward to being back inside a sweaty, stinky venue again — to be bumping against strangers while we all take in loud drums and bass that you can feel in your chest. Whenever that day finally comes, I look forward to finding GOOD JOB. somewhere around Seattle and basking in some of that early 2000s, pre-recession and global pandemic energy.
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