Not to be confused with several bands called The Buddy System, The Buddy System Forever are a three piece indie rock band from Queens, New York and their members delight in sharing a massively retro sound that celebrates the glory days of 90s alternative rock. Across the five tracks that make up their 2025 EP ‘The Most Famous Arena’, you’ll hear a love for the legendary Dinosaur Jr, Superchunk and Pavement delivered in massively broad strokes. Much like other twenty first century bands that are so keen to look back at those plaid filled summers, of course, everything is recycled with love, and the material has a spark of its own.

With the aid of a clanging guitar sound and a spoken intro, ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall Part II’ makes no secret of the band’s influences, and when breaking into a more tuneful riff where a lead guitar dances across a hard edged drum sound, everything explodes into life. The stop/start nature of the riff in hand really helps to crank up the excitement, and by the time the verse hits, the tried and tested combination of noisy indie vibes and slacker moods sounds brilliant. Joe Turchi’s drawling vocals are dragged with glee across a semi-punky riff in a way that will feel familiar to anyone who cranked out Superchunk and Yo La Tengo records in 1995, but bringing an important balance, a hugely melodic backing vocal from bassist Nicole Erbio really lifts the main melody. It’s more of an exercise in delivering powerful slacker noise than an invitation to sing along, but as an introduction to this fuzzy sounding power trio, this number is a riff based treat that’ll thrill lovers of the style.

Taking a punchier drum sound (courtesy of Justin Licameli), ‘Summer Song’ opens with a hard edged groove, almost sounding like a throwback to ‘Slanted & Enchanted’ era Pavement. It initially sounds as if this’ll be a track exploring some of TBSF’s noisier aspects, but then Joe switches the mood by dropping in a busy guitar riff with a clean edge, before everyone hits a heady groove that, again, sounds like Pavement colliding with Superchunk. The push and pull between the two moods is exciting, but perhaps not as cool as the way dirty and clean vocals are used to weave in and out of each other to keep the low key chorus feeling a little more buoyant. Chucking in a brief guitar solo that’s very much of the J Mascis mould, everything feels complete…and then, bam! – the band take an unexpected opportunity to introduce a brand new riff and mood, and power through a few bars of punky excess. It’s brilliant. It then transpires that this is just another false ending, and the track closes with a huge round of layered power pop vocals, showing how these guys can pull a huge melody out of the bag when required. The whole EP is good, but ‘Summer Song’ is definitely the highlight.

Those looking for something a little more direct should enjoy ‘Gazing’, a solid indie rocker that, at times, feels like a homage to the noisier fare from Buffalo Tom’s self-titled debut, and at others flaunts such a love for Dinosaur Jr – especially through Joe’s featured solo – you could be forgiven for assuming you’ve uncovered buried musical treasure from 1993. Everything here is of a great standard, musically, but the trio really stretch out on ‘Last Time’. Driven by an impressively loud drum sound, the single immediately hits upon a great rocky vibe with strong hints of 90s alternative rock, as well as a pinch of something more contemporary with sounds comparable to Muncie Girls and Fightmilk. Most importantly, their overdriven sound is coupled with a great sense of pop-ish melody which is largely shared through a superb harmony vocal, but also present in some of the track’s perky guitar fills. For those who love all things fuzzy, another lead guitar break modelled on the sounds of J Mascis should raise a smile, and for those with short attention spans, the band repeat their previous trick of introducing a completely different riff before bowing out, which in this case explores noisier emo influences. The end result isn’t quite as effective as ‘Summer Song’, but it still feels like a superb value four minute workout.

The mysteriously titled ‘Song 5’ – naturally sequenced as song number five at the end of the EP – continues the unashamed retro love by sounding like something produced by the legendary Paul Q. Kolderie & Sean Slade at Fort Apache, capturing perfect mid tempo, lolloping riffs which are interspersed with sharper melodic punk chops. As with a lot of Buddy material, the guitar riffs sit proudly centre stage, but for those paying closer attention, it’ll be the vocal harmonies shared between Joe and Nicole that steal the show. When pulling together on a couple of the louder moments – particularly leading into another Mascis-esque lead break – they give the slacker material more of a contemporary emo flavour, suggesting that the band could branch out musically, if they so wished. Closing with a drum led, punkier riff and a round of gang vocals, this slow burning track eventually leaves the listener with one of the EP’s more rousing melodies.

This EP isn’t big on obvious chorus hooks. Instead, The Buddy System Forever seem keen on wowing their audience with big, overdriven guitar riffs and grubby production values that celebrate a slacker/grungy aesthetic. On that score, it’s pretty much perfect. The shying away from obvious singalong moments means this is a release that’ll take a little longer to stick, but in terms of a hugely retro musical celebration delivered through still-young hands, it’s a genuine winner.

March 2025