Its best song runs two minutes. Its final song spans eight, five of which are dedicated to an extended noise jam. The whole thing can be listened to in the span of running an errand (and back).
But numbers only tell part of the story of Comfy’s latest album, “Goated & Foreboded,” a journey to the center of power-pop with just enough detours to keep things interesting.
Here’s the rest: The hooks are bright, but vocalist Connor Benincasa strains to reach them. This tension creates a gripping texture, as when he delivers the chorus of the first song like an exorcism: You were my friend!
“Wasted” reflects the dissonance of the Pixies before melting into 1960s jangle pop. “Dream Is Dead,” big single material, moves like a Pavement deep cut fronted by Spiral Stairs.
The best part of “Dream Is Dead” is how it ramps up to a final triumphant guitar solo that never quite happens. When Benincasa and his band — guitarist Jack Washburn, bassist Duvanté Cora and alternate drummers Ben Chesnes and CITY’s art director Jake Walsh — subtly upend expectations like this, they fulfill their power-pop promise in dazzling ways.
The biggest deviation here is “Awake & Living,” the rousing eight-minute closing track that plays out like ‘90s Weezer covering The Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.” Power-pop is by nature economical, typically packing catchiness into three or four minutes. “Awake & Living,” by its very nature, bucks the trend to mirror the very essence of the song itself, captured right in its title.
Maybe there’s a lesson. Put one foot in front of the other, and only eight more measures until the next chorus — if you’re lucky. Sometimes there’s no chorus, only feedback. How do you wrangle the chaos into order? Might as well keep that beat going for a few more minutes.
Patrick Hosken is an arts reporter at CITY. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Oct 1-31, 2024.
