Massage is a Los Angeles-based indie rock act comprised id of Alex Naidus (guitar, vocals), who was once a member of Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Michael Felix (drums), Andrew Romano (guitar, vocals), David Rager (bass) and Gabrielle Ferrer (keys, vocals), and in a relatively short period of time, the band has received attention for crafting a jangling guitar pop sound that as the band’s Andrew Romano says in press notes was “inspired by a new generation of Australian bands like Twerps and Boomgates and Dick Driver, who are ostensibly doing a very retrograde thing — I mean they’re mostly white guys playing guitar rock — but somehow finding a sweet spot that Americans, who tend towards the muscular and melodramatic, always seem to miss: messier and more casual, but also catchier somehow.”
The band’s full-length debut Oh Boy is slated for a July 27, 2018 release through Tear Jerk Records, and the album’s latest single, album title track “Oh Boy,” will further cement their growing reputation for writing shimmering guitar pop and gorgeous melodies — but with a loose, ramshackle vibe. As the band’s Romano says of the song “‘Oh Boy’ is our California version of that ramshackle vibe. When I wrote it, I was listening to a lot of 16 Lovers Lane-era Go-Betweens — ground zero for today’s Aussie scene — and I think that their influence may have come through in all the droning chords and the domestic imagery. The last lines of the song were dummy lyrics that suck. I realized what they were about — how honest they were about things I hadn’t even realized I was feeling; about family and fatherhood and settling down and ambition — and the rest of the words were written in response. Sometimes a song tells you what it wants to be.”
