PUJOL

Nashville’s favorite son, garage-punk boy wonder Daniel Pujol – who’s keeping it simple with band/moniker PUJOL – is starting to get his due. After two Third Man Records releases — a Live At Third Man 12″ and a 7″ in the Blue series — and some recent love in Spin and Nylon mags, PUJOL released yet another single on Jonas Stein, of Turbo Fruits’, Turbo Time Records, recently featured in the Nashville Scene. The Turbo-helmed single, “Mayday,” is kinda like an answer song to Wavves’ “King Of The Beach,” though PUJOL isn’t as explicit in his meaning as Wavves’ Nathan Williams. PUJOL, like Wavves, is one of a new breed of songwriters who can make pop hooks fit into overdriven punk. PUJOL shares some of Wavves’ thin Tele garage-twang, but PUJOL is lyrically denser, stylistically rougher and altogether less straightforward. And where Williams is all Cali braggadocio – “You’re never gonna stop me” he intones over and over in his song’s chorus – PUJOL doesn’t even really tell us who the Mayday king is. “I love to hear you speak because I dig the things you say/ You’re gonna wear that crown all over town like you’re the King of Mayday,” he sings.

PUJOL understands how to craft a catchy lyric — “you’re making all the tassles sway” – as well as creating clever, self-reflexive wordplay like “a spade’s a spade” and “lemons made of lemonade,” and even wisely rhymes “superstition” and “christen.” PUJOL and his gargage-y outfit will win over distortion lovers and haters alike. His lyrics and hooks are so good that often times he seems more like an early electric Dylan than the punk greats he probably more closely looks up to. And he pulls it all off with a slightly sinister carelessness that could make him a star if he wants it.