Certain artists pull you in. Hearing them makes you say, “I could do that. I should do that!” The Ramones. The Minutemen. (Shit, The Minutemen said it from the damned stage! Watt still ends concerts by tellin’ folks to “start their own band, paint their own picture, etc…”). The Plurals belong in this company. Seeing them live is revelatory. They’re one of the few groups today whose influences aren’t merely contemporary, yet they don’t fall into some retro trap either (the days of them being some ‘90s knock-off are, like, over, man). They simply play rock music, styles and conventions and trends be damned. Futurospective is the record I’ve been waiting for them to make, and it’s been a long time coming. It’s their Zen Arcade, their Double Nickels. The record where they truly put to disc what we’ve always seen them do live. The record that, if there were any justice in the world (or if people still liked rock and roll anyways) some schmuck would be writing a book about twenty years from now. When you have a band that is this goddamned rockin’, it’s just undeniable. These guys and gal play like their life depended on it. It does. They reach new heights of musical interplay (there’s a phrase usually reserved for Rush reviews, eh?) without sacrificing one ounce of face-blowing-off power or catchiness (and this is easily the catchiest The Plurals have ever been). I’d list song titles or whatever people expect reviewers to do, but everything on this record is so all-fired great I’d have to talk about every damned one of them. (Nobody’s paying me by the word here!) I will say that “Happy Songs” is probably the best Plurals song ever written and that the moment where Nick says “Guitar!” like he’s going to introduce some rockin’ guitar solo, but Tommy just comes in with some palm muting and ends the song is a wonderful bit of probably unintentional humor. (The kind that makes me write run-on sentences, apparently.) Futurospective is the past and the future all in one place, with a voice that is undeniably their own. No hype, no bandwagon-jumping, no bullshit. Album of the year, hands down.
–Ryan Horky (Good Time Gang, gtgrecords.net)