“Shiner” by Mainland

February 25. 2014 | By Kat Engh

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Mainland
Shiner
[Unsigned]

The members of Brooklyn’s latest contribution to surfy garage pop Mainland are only a few years into legal drinking age, and they’re already garnering deserved comparisons to The Strokes and scoring features from Interview Magazine. The band’s latest EP, Shiner, might as well have been born from a night inside of one or three-too-many PBR tall boys, a few bummed cigarettes, and a bathroom floor, or at least the best and worst years of your twenties. Lyrics from all four tracks harp on common city kid problems of whether to go out on the town or grow up and move to the country, and it almost makes us envious that Mainland can make coming of age sound so good.

Mainland’s well-oiled tunes live somewhere between a more clean cut Rancid bassline and a grittier Walkmen everything else, and we have to wonder if recording in Jim Eno of Spoon’s studio in Austin is to thank for influencing an occasional moment of twang. Whatever influences play into this moppy-headed bop-along EP, we’re happy to welcome Mainland’s title track “Shiner” to our dive bar party mixtape.

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