With Keep Up, Loose Tooth deliver a familiar but engaging record

Released on the Courtney Barnett-run label Milk! Records, the Aussie trio share some distinct qualities with their label manager but their penchant for dreamy, pop-folk doused in effervescence is entirely their own. The rambling manner in which the three band members spill their lyrics is somewhat familiar, and their distorted, dissonant soundscapes and drilling basslines recall the likes of American bands Palehound and Snail Mail.

“You want to be my best friend, you want me in your life, you want me to be happy so the guilt inside you dies,” the trio sing chirpily in “You Say”, the darker and more twisted undertones of the lyrics juxtaposed by their cheery, singsong delivery.

“You say there’s no one better, I’m the best person you’ve met… Well if I’m really special, why am I a secret? Why do you tell little lies about how we are meeting?” A question to answer.

Keep Up is a charming mixture of joyful bedroom pop verses embedded within more garage-rock oriented undercurrents, while also incorporating themes of Americana folk, country and soul. Unpolished in the most sparkling of manners, Loose Tooth deliver the big statements – “You will not be happy because you don’t know what you want” - set atop surf-rock stylings and three-part harmonies that the Beach Boys would be proud of.

Loose Tooth are very much a golden project formed from the Melbourne community sphere that spawned the likes of Courtney Barnett, but they are very much a band well and truly their own.