Seattle band Pony Time are known for their ability to mix modern lo-fi with punk and Big-Muffed garage shredding, and on their sophomore release Go Find Your Own they’ve honed this style to near perfection. While other current punk rock indie darlings such as Wavves or Howler rely on a more finely distilled affectation, Pony Time manage to sound fresh even while hammering through track after track of what is ostensibly blissed-out garage pop.  

There’s no doubt that lead singer/bassist/baritone (yes, baritone) guitar player Luke Beetham and drummer Stacy Peck have studied long and hard in their tradition.  Go Find Your Own explores E-A-D (God’s greatest gift to rock music) in all its glorious combinations, and there’s plenty of pulse-pounding tom hits to please any hard rock crowd. But what makes Pony Time truly unique is Beetham’s vocals. It’s common, even popular for punk singers to take on the timbres of their forefathers, and even more common for them to sing in guttural, bland ranges.  Oftentimes this results in something like Down’s Syndrome chortlings (Howler, Icaeage, most street punk bands ever) or, gasp, Blink-182 cover bands (Wavves, etc al).  But Beetham’s vocals come off as heavily effected without sounding overly affected.  It’s as if he stole some of his little sister’s amphetamine salts and then hit the Fred Schneider/Johnny Rotten autotune filter on the recording software.  There’s just nothing quite like it. When Beetham needs sweetness, he channels sweetness, when he needs weirdness it’s there in spades, and when he needs violence, good lord does he sound violent.

On standout track “Geordie”, Beetham soars over Peck’s stomp shuffle, peaking in a melodic frenzy of demonic love: “For you/ I lie, For you/ I die, For you/ I steal, For you/ I kill.” Rarely has a potential suitor sounded so simultaneously sweet and dangerous. Perhaps most impressive is “Stickers”, a deranged love letter to the local band of the same name in which Beetham implores them to “never play without us.”  Here is where Beetham sounds his most Rotten/UK-82, but it’s notable that for all the rage in intonation the lyrics are actually about how much another band kicks ass, typical of the humble simplicity that permeates each infectious track.

And here is where I write something negative.  Something about how the album sounds repetitive upon multiple listens or about the limitations of a two person garage punk band.  But I simply can’t do it.  Go Find Your Own is just too fun.  “Lesbian Mayor” highlights the kind of rollicking riff/drum give and take that punk bands trying to sound “metal” wish they could pull off, and final track “Hippy Shit” shuffle-bludgeons its way into your brain, reverberating out with one last soaring chorus.

With Go Find Your Own Pony Time finds a way to capture the inexplicable joy that first drew you into punk without acquiescing to its worst clichés.  It’s simply one band knowing and owning its craft, a lesson that many more would do well to follow.

–Paul Vega, music writer, The Monarch Review