Throughout Personal Trainer’s new LP’s 40-minute duration, you may feel like you’re listening to Modest Mouse, Guided By Voices, the Flaming Lips, Pavement, Sparklehorse, the Strokes, and maybe even a little Coldplay. You’ll also hear shouty, abrasive mathcore, woozy psychedelic prog, and sunshiney folk. While Still Willing might not be the most original indie rock ever etched into vinyl, it still sounds fresher, individualistic, and more personal than their first record. Sometimes, you’ve just got to own your influences.
Listening to Still Waiting, the second record from Dutch multi-instrumentalist Willem Smit, will give you an uncanny sense of deja vu. Early single “Round” can sound like an alternate mix of Pavement‘s “Cut Your Hair”, with its euphoric “bah bah bahs”, its lighthearted falsetto, and gang vocals. “Cyan” is a dead ringer for the Strokes’ early cosmopolitanism, with its slick telephony vocal effect. “I Can Be Your Personal Trainer” borrows more than a few notes from Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla” outro. Nearly every song features some sort of musical quotation. Anyone who demands absolute originality or some notion of “authenticity” would probably write off Still Willing in its first 30 seconds.
It’s unlikely that any indie pop fan in the year of our lord 2024 will care, though. Nor should they be at the risk of telling people what to think or how to feel. Past a certain point, it becomes less authentic to scrub a lifetime of absorbing pop culture. “Censorship is the last resort / Kind of not what you’re looking for,” as Smit sings on “Cyan”. Instead of being bogged down by their influences, Personal Trainer lift up their inspirations. While most of the obvious touchstones have been legitimized by 2024 tastemakers, some aspects of Still Waiting sound decidedly less hip. While “Round” may sound like Pavement, its bright brass arrangements bring to mind less hip 1990s pop rock like Smash Mouth or Sugar Ray. Instead of judging Smit for his listening habits, it seems like maybe those bands deserve a fresh appraisal.
Despite Still Willing‘s incredibly intricate and ambitious arrangements, Smit and his collaborators went with their guts, searching for innovation and surprise. That was the right call. Personal Trainer have razor-sharp pop instincts as they effortlessly stitch together earworm guitar lines, bouncy beats, irresistible vocal harmonies, and imaginative production. Their quest for surprise is beyond successful, as you can hear to best effect on the opener and crown jewel, “Upper Ferntree Gully”, which cycles through Electric Light Parade locked grooves, found sound field recordings, psychedelic prog, and pared-down folk – in the first two minutes alone! Wait another 60 seconds, and you’ll get some tensile post-punk guitars and drum breakdowns. By the time they get to 6:30, they’ve become the Blood Brothers. It’s not often you get a single that speaks equally to math rockers, metalheads, and sensitive indie folkers.
It speaks just as loudly about who Still Willing is for. If you get into virtually any indie music of the last 30 years, there’s bound to be something you’ll dig. The only downside is if there’s one aspect you’re especially crazy about, it’ll likely be gone before you know it. It’s hard to fault a band for having too many ideas or too much creativity, though. The amount of sonic quotations is the only other minor quibble, which can sometimes leave you feeling like you’re hearing an especially ambitious surrealist collage instead of an original creation. Pop music is always made up of recognizable parts, though, so this should hardly be a dealbreaker for those who like their indie rock infectious and melodic.
While it can be smart, tasteful, and stylish, pop music should speak to the blood and guts and shin bones. It’s music for driving with the windows down, for pre-gaming on a Saturday night. While it shouldn’t discard musicality entirely, pop music should be more Big Star than Bartok. It’s best when it’s fun and exciting. Still Willing is definitely that. Smit’s absolute adoration for slick, artful pop music is evident in every note of its too-short runtime, which bristles with inspiration and crackles with enthusiasm the entire time. It’ll make you fall in love with indie rock and indie pop all over again. You’ll fall in love with Personal Trainer in the process.