Neutrals

Bay Area trio Neutrals came together from a pool of local D.I.Y. musicians, breathing life into singer/guitarist Allan McNaughton's endearingly jittery songs. The group evoked the same sharp take on pop as the cleanest mod-punk bands of the '70s and early '80s on their 2019 full-length debut, Kebab Disco. Glaswegian songwriter Allan McNaughton ended up in San Francisco and played throughout the 2000s with scratchy post-punk trio Giant Haystacks. When that band broke up, he spent some years in the similar Airfix Kits before Neutrals began in 2016. Made up of McNaughton on guitar and vocals, drummer Phil Lantz, and Terry Malts bassist Phil Benson, the band took a less angular approach to classic punk and post-punk than their earlier groups, with clean guitars and McNaughton's plainspoken vocal style calling to mind early Rough Trade artists. The band quickly released two demo tapes (Promotional Cassette in 2016 and Promotional Cassette 2 the next year) before taking a little more time in the studio on their first proper album. Neutrals' agitated tunefulness took its best form on the 12-song LP Kebab Disco, released on the Emotional Response label in the summer of 2019. ~ Fred Thomas