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Maybe it’s unfortunate that blog-rock has all but become its own genre, but at least our trusty online purveyors of mp3s still break a good band every now and then. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, though clunkily named, is one such success story: early Internet hype got them the debut slot on Daytrotter.com, a clever website that actually interviews bands and records them live in a private studio, and the band eventually inked a deal with Polyvinyl Records. Broom, their debut, often plays like an easy game of guess-the-influence: Pavement on ‘I Am Warm and Powerful,’ Elliott Smith on ‘Yr Broom,’ and any given late-‘90s Merge Records band the rest of the time. But these guys are clever in their own right, especially on a song like ‘Pangaea,’ where a lovers’ split is encompassed by the separating landmass. It sounds a bit grand, but really, this band’s just likable enough to earn it.
