The New Collisions Are Optimists

The New Collisions are a band that bring back the classic female fronted alternative sound that dominated so much of the early to mid 90's. This Bostonian band bring to mind bands like Throwing Muses, Belly, Wasp Factory, The Slingbacks, and Letters to Cleo and fellow New Englanders, Tribe. New Collisions have a classic sound that's as timeless as rock and roll itself. With soaring vocals, chunky guitars, and a strong pop sensibility the band create music that's tense, melodic, and pretty darn good. Their album, The Optimist, is a solid outing that sees this five piece constructing spiky pop music with an energy unmatched today.

The Optimist is laden with hooky riffs that are sharp enough to break skin and clever enough to wrap themselves around your brain. Vocalist, Sarah Guild facilitates this by captivating with her slightly dramatic and quirky voice that at one second sounds classically trained and the next sounds like Terry Bozzio's new wave sighs. Guild is quite the performer and when she speaks up you can't help but pay attention; she's the fuel for this band and where her voice goes so to go the songs and the band. She seems so important that one can't help but wonder how mundane this band would be without her fronting it...let's just hope she never leaves.

That being said, The Optimist is a strong effort whose songs are proficiently played, excellently produced and sound as if they were transported from a long lost album from 1991. This is the sound of college rock when I was in school. The drama, the flair, the subtle power of the band...it's all here and it sounds fantastic. This might not be spot on the latest trends, but there's something timeless and classic about The New Collisions that anyone who has been listening to indie/alternative for more than a year will recognize. They're not trendy, they're not uber cool, but they are really quite good. If the 90's revival ever catches steam here's your leader of the pack and if you were smart you'd jump on their bandwagon now...I mean their The Optmisit's after all.