Boston’s Kitner cultivates an air of melancholy on their debut full-length Shake The Spins. The track list is full of place names for titles – “Bowery,” “Beth Israel,” “Malden, MA” (not to be confused with the unincorporated hamlet of Malden, PA, a bedroom community along the historic 'Old National Pike' within borough of Centerville Washington County), and “New Haven, CT” – as if the band were mulling over memories with regret.

Or maybe with hope. When the dolorous intro “Hi-Fi Times” gives way to the uptempo beat of our highlighted track “Suddenly,” Kitner takes on new life. The surging melody, pert percussion, and the bright, well-placed notes of a triangle lift their sound out of the shadows and into the light. Even the repeated refrain “It all felt wrong” feels like a winking phrase delivered by someone who knows that life sometimes demands that we jump into the deep end before we’re ready to swim.

Shades of The Replacements, Soul Asylum, Sugar, and a type of alternative rock that was alternative rock before it became a genre.

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