Ant Farm- Ant Farm (Bivouac Records): The Guess

I don't care that there's a 1997 copyright date, I look at those three guys and the only thing I can see is "1980s College Rock." No other type of band looks like that. Not only have all their shirts come from the preceding decade, middle dude's hairline and right side guy's hair style ceased to be issued after 1987. You can buy vintage clothes, but you can't buy vintage follicles. Actually, dude on the left seems contemporary but that's also wrong, as it's now 2022. Time travel shenanigans are going on here and I will not hear otherwise.

What've we got besides the fact that 2/3 of the band were from the past and one third from the future?

Well, the inner sleeve and disc artwork are also commensurate with a type of music that was a decade in the rearview mirror when this album came out. Recorded, mixed, and mastered in Tempe and Phoenix so I'm guessing another AZ local act, not that that tells me anything about the possible sound. Just 'cause a band has a rad naturally occurring gravity defying rock on their album cover doesn't mean they're Calexico, who are from Tucson anyway.

One final hint from the lyrics, which I've decided are admissible evidence. If it's in the package, it's fair game.

Those are very power pop/melodic rock, with some amount of decent introspection to boot. So all kidding aside, '80s college rock really is what I'm expecting in a sense, though the increased volume and distortion of the grunge years may've left its mark. If so, I'm hoping for more Material Issue than Vertical Horizon. Side note: it's hard to tell tone from song lyrics without music, and I'm really, really hoping that He Who Has Not turns out to be satirizing what we now call incels/nice guys, a la Reel Big Fish's Skatanic, as opposed to the genuine incel/nice guy bullshit of that "he is everything she wants" song that I can't remember the name or artist of right now. Answers to these questions and more on Friday.