Listen: Tweens – “Forever”

This Cincinnati, Ohio threesome pride themselves as purveyors of “trash pop”, insistently straight-forward, throwback punk with hearty dollops of bubblegum to leaven it out.

Tweens’ second single, “Forever”, from their forthcoming debut album, throws a bit of a wrinkle into the band’s bread and butter sound, led by a bouncing bass riff that casts the song with a shade of New Wave. Think of it as a skip and hop rather than a full-bore sprint. The sound, though, is still delightfully rudimentary – rubber band bass, guitars from 20,000 leagues under the sea, and hand clap snares paired with pots and pans cymbals.

Guitarist/vocalist Bridget Battle grapples with that all-encompassing love life issue plaguing all early 20-somethings – a heart soaked and oozing with passion duking it out with a brain frozen in fear of commitment – while tossing us a tasty (and perhaps unintentional) double entendre as she yelps: “my heart is breaking….from the beating.”

Pick up Tweens’ self-titled debut, out on French Kiss Records, 8 April.