The Press came highly recommended via friends of mine, with suggestions that their sound was a more accessible, rock-oriented take on the improvisational/ambient-fueled pop currently beloved in many circles of this city. I’m not sure I agree — the sound I heard recalled, in places, recent Modest Mouse and The Walkmen, albeit with a distinctly Southern-rock solidity. (They are from Atlanta, after all.)

Diehard are friends, so I can’t be all that impartial about their sound. That said, it’s a sound that heavily recalls early-to-mid-90s alt-rock, and thus triggers fits of nostalgia in me for a time when I drove around central New Jersey in a 1985 Chrysler Laser. It’s catchy stuff (a week later, a few of their songs are still in my head), and I’m tempted to revisit the Madder Rose discography to see if the nascent comparison my mind is trying to make is, in fact, accurate.