Carly Cosgrove is from Philadelphia, and it shows. The band’s debut, Woah, Just Take It Easy Man., continues a long-standing tradition of starting a band as an escape route from a row home basement. Beyond anchoring their melodrama in an uncertain present — dissecting flavor-of-the-week relationships, wondering if college is just a flopped spinoff of high school — this upstart trio has learned from the city’s overlapping past lives. Built by emo’s kinetic possibilities, sustained by episodic bites of rupture and repair: fueled by soul, man.


Guitarist/vocalist Lucas Naylor, bassist Helen Barsz, and drummer Tyler Kramer blend self-referential humor with precise emotional beats. Songs play out like explosive consequences to underthought actions: plenty of unexpected turns abound. “You Ate My Enchilada!” starts in one place and crashes into another — it’s either Naylor’s measured voice or breakneck time changes that make that happen. “Buttersock,” released as a single afterwards, blends half-sung tongue twister verses into a stab at scene politics. “Not My Job” is the band’s closest thing to a resting point, with churning instrumentals teasing something’s lurking underneath. In less time than it takes for a tan and a decent haircut, Carly Cosgrove transforms from self-immolating to self-respecting. It’s their time to be.


~ James Cassar