Pinky Pinky - Turkey Dinner

It’s a damn good time to be Pinky Pinky. For the last couple of years, the SoCal throwback rockers have been making a name for themselves with a buoyant collection of breezy, nostalgic bangers, all the while having just left high school. And there’s nowhere to go but up. Anastasia Sanchez (vocals/drums), Isabelle Fields (guitar), and Eva Chambers (bass) are quickly on their way to becoming college rock staples. Fresh off the success of two separate buzzworthy EPs, the Los Angeles DIY psych-rock trio’s lively full-length debut, Turkey Dinner, is a peppy summer jam, filled with sun-drenched earworms that are seamlessly primed to serve as the soundtrack to your late August barbecue.

Last year’s Hot Tears was a dreamy departure from the in-your-face garage rock of 2017’s Pinky Pinky, and Turkey Dinner cements the band’s smooth, sugary sound even further. The album comes out of the gate swinging, with the lush beach vibes of “My Friend Sean,” an upbeat and flirtatious surfer guitar-pop anthem that serves as the album’s emotionally raw de facto thesis statement. So much of the record is bursting at the seams with an infectious, opulent atmosphere. It yanks the listener into its creamy world, whether it's cool island jam session “Do Me Dirty (Charlie)” feeling like a Saturday afternoon in the park or a tender, open strummed moment of vulnerability like “Sticking Around” that forces you to stop and digest what’s unfolding before your eyes.  

For a band with only three members, Pinky Pinky certainly know how to fill the space around them. Crafting a full, commanding sound, the band is able to utilize delightfully layered instrumentation, even bringing in a boisterous horn section on tracks like melting, bittersweet daydream “Mr. Sunday” and driving, fluttering show stopper “Loose Change.” But even without the extra bells and whistles, the band is able to pack quite a punch with deceptively straightforward guitar tunes like punky, start-and-stop “Mystery Sedan,” off-kilter, retro rocker “Lady Dancer” and crunchy, spirited “All the Birds.” Above all else, Pinky Pinky is simply a good, old-fashioned rock band, and they understand the uncluttered immediacy of a few well-positioned power chords.  

It’s truly rare for a debut album to display such a fully formed sound, particularly coming from the lips of teenagers. Still, even as they dabble in such varied sounds as funky, smoky boomer “If It Don’t Hurt,”  twangy, pining slow jam “Applecheeks,” and trippy, buzzing interlude “Floorboards,” Pinky Pinky feel like one of the most self-assured acts in recent memory. Sounding like a mix from your high school crush that’s permanently jammed in your car’s tape deck, Turkey Dinner is dripping with lived-in, incandescent psychedelia. It’s going to be near impossible to unearth an album that more definitively embodies the summer of 2019.