Rather impressive Boston-area quintet Streetlights serves up some super slick and polished emo, but not so slick and polished that it's like ultramodern and irritating, you know? There's a great amount of pop-tinged catchiness, dashes of not-quite-heaviness, and even the occasional funky-bluesy U-turn. Postcards From Knoxfield really takes me back to the Equal Vision or Victory Records rosters of the early- to mid-2000s, when both labels were dropping some phenomenal emo from a number of bands that should've gone much farther than they did—think Armor for Sleep, Spitalfield, etc.
I almost went with the nearly-as-awesome "Cream (Mi Amor)," but damn, "Dirt/Diamonds" is just too good. Shit, the longer I think about it, though, that chorus in "Cream..." is total gold! (The group's debut EP from 2016 is also worth a listen.) The more I sit with this material, the more I dig it. I've listened to this EP like six times this week, and that doesn't happen very often. It took a few spins to really knock me on my ass, but this might end up being one of my favorites of the year.
I'm always partial to Bandcamp, but you can also find Postcards From Knoxfield on Spotify, Apple Music, and all the rest, so... check it out. Killer musicianship, excellent production, quality songwriting... Streetlights seems pretty damn underrated to me. Hopefully that'll change!
