In the grand scheme of things, the state of rock music today is ephemeral at best, ever-dwindling at worst. (At least when it comes to the kind of rock that isn’t preoccupied with being wholly confrontational as an end goal.)
That said, there are outfits like Boston’s Vundabar who have managed to dodge the pop-ification of music without resorting to a radical opposition in order to define themselves. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with aesthetic opposition (Big Ups drops a new album in two months, everyone!) but it’s nice to see a band creatively thriving within a genre that has become as hit-and-miss as rock.
If you’re bored and waiting around for a bus, there are worse records to turn to than Vundabar’s Smell Smoke.
