I hate to make the easy comparison, but this sounds like early Paramore in the best possible way.  The band’s sole consistent member and frontwoman Kelc Galluzzo commands a stage and has a voice that rivals Hayley Williams’.  While 2017 has been a great year for female-fronted bands, most tend to lean towards a punkier or more emo sound, and Jetty Bones are unafraid to embrace a sense of mid-2000’s pop-punk.  The pop embrace is in full effect on the band’s second EP, Old Women.

What makes Old Women work is the fusion of golden age of pop-punk sounds with some more current trends.  While so much of Old Women taps into palm-muted power chords, Jetty Bones do embrace some math-rock intricacies that have become so popular such as on “Morning Clothes” and “Spokes,” which fittingly features Dylan Mattheisen of Tiny Moving Parts.  “Innocent Party” taps into folk music and classic pop-punk acoustic ballads before turning into one of the most explosive songs of the EP.  “Morning Clothes” even explores some more twinkly elements of emo.  Jetty Bones are at their best when fulling embracing stage hurtling pop-punk.  “No Lover” and “Clear Honey” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on A Lesson in Romantics or Riot.  Above all is Galluzzo’s powerful voice.  Like Hayley Williams, she is able to convey a large emotional weight whether she’s belting out the chorus of “No Lover” or keeping some feelings reserved like on “Innocent Party.”  On songs like “Clear Honey,” she alternates between the two with little-to-no warning.

Like most pop-punk artists, Galluzzo makes her mark most with her lyrics.  She delivers immensely quotable choruses (“I don’t need a lover ‘cause I don’t need anyone”), closing gut-punches (“I need to find a way to get myself better forever”), and great imagery (“I woke up alone, and these jutting bones were all that I had left”).    Throughout the five songs, she explores recovery from addiction, depression, relationships, and prevalence over all of the previous three.  “No Lover” is a great “fuck you, I’m better off alone” breakup song.  The opening verse of “Morning Clothes” is a stunning and accurate depiction of depression:

Get out of your mourning clothes
You can’t stay in bed all day
Even though I want to
I know I said that I needed this
But it seems good things must always slip away
And as for the necessities that I buried in my bones
They’re not that far away
In a place that’s not my home

Even though so many of the lyrics are downtrodden, the chorus of “Clear Honey” acts as something of a mission statement for Jetty Bones’ whole philosophy:

Honey, have you seen the view from up here?
‘Cause I can see everything in front of me
So clearly that I don’t want to go
I don’t want to go back now
I need to find a way to make this forever

This is only reaffirmed in the closing line of “Spokes”: “I know you’re ready for it.”

It’s been so long to hear something so well-polished and clean in the punk community, and it’s even nicer to hear it from a female-fronted band.  While Paramore continues to make great music, they mostly shy away from the pop-punk scene that they helped cultivate.  Jetty Bones are a welcome addition to this scene.  This is certainly one of the most fun EPs to come out this year.