Boston rockers Easy Kerwin are out the gate today with their debut LP I’m So Glad You’re Here. A soothing blend of bedroom-captured ambience, serrated and gaze-y noise rock, and elegantly rendered jangle pop, the record is a pretty handy summation of RIYL: the 1990’s, though fronter Zac Kerwin finds plenty of new shapes and colours within that sturdy framework to carve out his own space within the marble. The record is bookended (and halved) by three interstitial yet alluringly cinematic drone pieces that certainly speak to his namechecking Aphex Twin, Gustav Mahler, and several filmmakers and visual artists in the deliciously stream-of-consciousness style liner notes on Bandcamp. They also some nice textures in between all the rock guitars, which is to say there are a lot of rock guitars on this thing. Close-mic’d acoustics almost clipping in distortion, big, wide (presumably off set Fenders this is a shoegaze-adjacent record after all) electrics draped in fuzz, and tightly wound college rock style ones slathered in reverb and chorus. The production here, split between home recordings in Allston and sessions at The Record Co. in Dorchester, speaks to wonderful time (the 90’s) when big labels were throwing suitcases of cash at arty rock bands like this too. It’s dense, and murky, and tactile while still sounding like a group of people in a room banging it out.

And the songs are great too, especially “Fool” of which we are premiering the music video for today. A bouncy, almost U2-esque guitar filigree floats around before giving way to a slightly sour yet sturdy strummer about a connection you just can’t seem to shake. All in all, it’s an impressive first swing from Easy Kerwin, a group we will definitely be keeping tabs on. Hit play on the vid and read on for some thoughts from Zac.

“I made this after I got this little 2000s digital camera from my grandmother that can only record video at 320×240 for like 40 seconds max. As these tiny videos would open in preview on my computer, I got the idea for this grid of moving tiles that builds up and runs and runs and paints this broader scene. It reminded me of a quilt I used to have as a kid (that was made by this grandmother) made with all these different fabric squares and embroidery scenes tiled together.”

I’m So Glad You’re Here is out now, and tickets to the record release show at The Lilypad on Thursday, December 3rd are available here.