Sassy Attitude (Independent)

Jock Tears’ “Kelly Kapowski” would surely bring a tear to Bayside High School wrestling hunk A.C. Slater’s face. The opening number from the quartet’s Sassy Attitude EP is steeped in ’90s nostalgia, a fanboy ode to the titular Saved By the Bell character that presents her as homeless. Then again, maybe Kapowski’s old on-again-off-again suitor would just ’roid-rage in the pit to the tune’s frenzied punk assault.

“Kelly Kapowski” is the hardest-hitting cut on Sassy Attitude, as the rest of the collection mixes sloppy hooks and light and jokey wordplay. “Biggy Pop”, for instance, references the Ramones’ familiar “Blitzkrieg Bop” melody, but vocalist Lauren Ray’s lyrics also salute punk icon Iggy Pop in all his “shirtless glory”. She then goes the autobiographical route for “Super Scar”, a tune all about cracking her dome open at a tiki bar—the EP’s art features a picture of Ray sporting a Hawaiian shirt, her forehead spattered with her own blood.

But while the six-song release is completely fun, Ray’s relentlessly elementary rhyming schemes get a bit tired (the closing cut, “Rude Dude”, explains just who has that “sassy attitude”). To be fair, though, the singer did suffer a pretty hard-core head injury recently.