Denver’s Kissing Party Debut Charming Slop-Pop Ode "A Little Star" via Under the Radar
KISSING PARTY
Denver’s Most Endearing Slop-Pop Band Debut
“A Little Star” via Under the Radar
Mom & Dad LP Out 5/17
“The woozy harmonies and indistinct vocals mirror the resignation and bittersweet surrender of a drifting romance.” – Under the Radar
“Kissing Party has nearly perfected what it was already doing best: making straight ahead, two-minute pop songs” – The AV Club
“Among this city’s douchebags and fashion victims, there’s still a place for purity. Enter Kissing Party” – Jason Heller (NPR, Pitchfork)
Denver’s trash-pop princesses Kissing Party have a new album in the wo
Denver’s Kissing Party Debut Charming Slop-Pop Ode “A Little Star” via Under the Radar
rks, kicking things off with a return of their charming brand of slop-pop in first single “Jesse.” Today, the band debuts a fitting follow-up, the lo-fi “A Little Star,” via Under the Radar. Kissing Party continues to portray the moments of small town life; finding yourself, finding others, making it through the day.
The combination of airy, wistfully hopeful lyrics and jangly, crunchy guitars make for a perfect encapsulation of the DIY indie sound. This brand of endearing, authentic slop-pop is what Kissing Party is now known for, and dives back into with a new rush on Mom & Dad – out May 17.
Watch “A Little Star”
MORE ON KISSING PARTY:
After prematurely booking his first show without actually having a band yet, Gregg Dolan only had thirty days to pull together the slop-pop band he had been dreaming about ever since he first saw Prince’s Purple Rain at eight years old. Comprised of a rag-tag group of strangers, Dolan (vocals, guitar) says that Kissing Party met “by fate.” Singer Deidre Sage was recruited on the basis that “her name sounded cool,” their first guitarist, “a random guy who worked at the bank” was recruited because he owned a guitar, and drummer Shane Reid joined reluctantly despite having never heard any of Dolan’s songs. The Denver based five-piece was complete once Joe Hansen replaced the banker on guitar, and Lee Evans added the bass.
After their first year in Denver’s DIY scene, the group’s unique brand of self-described “Slop Pop” quickly cemented them as a local staple. Kissing Party’s first release Rediscover Loverscame in at number three on The Denver Post’s best albums of 2007. After their Sophomore LP The Hate Album received attention from national outlets like Three Imaginary Girls, Filter, and Skope Magazine they signed with local Denver label Hot Congress who released Wasters Wall, Looking Back it was Romantic, but at the Time I was Suffocating (which also received a limited tape release from Austin’s Fleeting Youth Records) and Christmas album, Winter in the Pub. In 2017 they released their most recent EP– and their last with Hot Congress– a split with labelmates Bleak Plaza.
Kissing Party’s upcoming album Mom & Dad (May 17th) will serve as the inaugural release for the band’s own label, BBYV — a Kickstarter effort that pooled over $5000 from dedicated fans. Consisting of twelve, power-pop gems that range from boozy ballads to two-minute pop symphonies, Mom & Dad feels, for Dolan, like a 31-minute opus– “everything [he’s] ever wanted to say in a record.” From Ohio basements to grey Pennsylvania days, these songs are an ode to suburban life, and extension and elevation of the band’s scrappy, DIY, day-to-day– debt, regret, heartbreak, hair-dye, and all.
