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Sarah, Send Your Driver

I've had a bag of Kettle Brand Sweet Onion chips in the salty cellar for a while. It took me a while to get to them because, through writing these blogs, I've come to the realization that I'm not super into Kettle Brand chips as a whole..they're generally too greasy (in both touch and taste). When I cracked open the wine coloured bag, to my surprise the chips weren't glistening in standard Kettle Brand fashion. I stared upon the "kettle cooked" slices of potato. I grabbed a crispy little one from the bag and tossed it into my mouth. [I didn't have any preconceived notions as to what the flavouring would taste like] When I got to the crunching I was greeted with a familiar taste...sour cream and onion [I've come to the conclusion that sour cream and onion chips are basically just onion but the creator didn't want them to sound that plain so they added sour cream into the name just for kicks {it should be noted that I haven't eaten sour cream and onion chips in a minute}]. Once you crunch, crunch swallow; you're left with a bit more of a lingering aftertaste than you're run of the mill SC&O. The further down the bag that my consumption lead me the more aggressive the oil covering of the chips became..to the point of being typical greasy Kettle Brand chips. The strong onion flavour helped combat the grease flavour so..cool? Not a bad bag. Onion based chips, I've found, are generally pretty middling, they're okay to mindlessly snack on but not all that stimulating to the tastebuds. If you're into SC&O and don't mind greasy kettle cooked chips have at 'em.

A few years back I heard of a band Timeshares through a split 7" with (the absolutely amazing) Captain We're Sinking. After hearing them on that split, I grabbed up Timeshares first album Bearable and found it quite enjoyable. It's 90's alt rock influenced pop punk (at least that's my dumbass simplified description). Energetic music, multiple singers that convey emotion without me questioning how tight their pants are, gang vocals...good shit. When I heard that they signed to Side One Dummy and were releasing a new album this year I was quite looking forward to it. Already Dead came out the end of April, I think I finally got my copy of the LP in late May..Early June. When I threw it on the turntable I was a little surprised. It was a lot slower than I was expecting. To simplify my thoughts..Already Dead was pop punk influenced alt rock. For the most part, the gang vocals gave way to harmonizing. The vocal delivery is more refined, the raw vocal deliveries from Bearable are far less present. I would say that, for me, Already Dead is a more challenging listen than Bearable due to the significantly slower average tempo. It hasn't been on heavy rotation for me, I however haven't given up on it..I think it'll be a bit of a grower. It should be said that there are still some toe tappers on this album, the stand out track for me is Tail Light. Go listen to Timeshares.

Stay hydrated,
Marc
  
ps..some of this may not make much sense..my proofreader was absent this evening, haha.




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