Photo credit: Brittany Murillo
The members of Versio Curs are just out of college, and the band is so green that they haven’t even played a show yet. Their debut album How Are You, however, is the work of a band old beyond their years. In its immediacy it recalls some of the better guitar-forward bands of the ’00s—Joyce Manor, Protomartyr, that sort of thing—but singer Kyle Halverson’s half-crooned vocals call back to a slightly earlier era of confessional indie-rock, a time when guys like Craig Finn, David Bazan and Conor Oberst poured their hearts out in voices you either loved or hated.
You could mistake him for a good decade older than he is, given how he sings as if fighting off the aches and pains of a far more withered body. “I can’t keep any of this down,” Halverson moans on “Honey Dreams,” a song that, like nearly every other one on the record, finds him fighting off nausea, numbness and nose bleeds. The album may be the most vivid account of the way our own nerves attack our bodies since Ian Sweet’s Shapeshifter, another frothy indie-rock album with an uneasy edge, but Halverson frames his hypochondriac tendencies with a wit that’s all his own. “I think I’m catching your cold,” he grumbles peevishly on “On Sunday,” and really, is there a better encapsulation of romantic stagnation than worrying about catching your partner’s cold?
Anyway, enjoy this one. It’s a very fresh spin on some very timeless themes of disillusionment and one of the most engaging indie-rock records I’ve heard so far this year, Milwaukee or otherwise. You can stream it below, ahead of its release on iTunes, Spotify and similar platforms on Tuesday.
