I’m not proud that it took me till track two to figure out Little Dave Merriman was in this band. My process with this one was as follows: have a laugh at the band name, look at the cover and have an even bigger chuckle about it, scan over the lyrics as I hit play, jam on the opening song for a bit, get to track two and go, “Wtf, is that Dave?” Then I check the band roster and realize I have egg all over my face. And like it’s even worse because I have heard most of these songs already while Zooming with Dave over the last year. Anyways, there’s only room for so much memory retention is all I can say. But look, this record is full of flat-out bangers. If you’re looking for The Arrivals, try playing this at the same time as a Treasure Fleet record, or just pop on Volatile Molotov for the five hundredth time. I was explaining this record as more artsy and emotionally darker than The Arrivals to my friend Connor and they came up with a fabulous analogy: Dangerous Chairs is to The Arrivals as Partial Traces is to The Soviettes. Yup, that’s it alright.What’s even more interesting about this rock outfit is that Little Dave is solely focused on singing. Dude’s got one of the best voices I’ve ever heard, and it’s nice to hear him let loose, untethered by a guitar and amp. The rest of the guys in this band are absolutely crushing it as well, I just don’t know their musical pedigrees. –Kayla Greet (Self-released)