Upset, Colleen Green

For the past few years, Ali Koehler has been best known as the drummer of the pop group Best Coast and the noisy girl punk trio Vivian Girls. After her departure from Best Coast, Koehler decided to step up from behind the kit to front a band of her own, embracing her melodic punk-spirited songwriting impulses with Upset. Joined by Patty Schemel (of Hole) on drums and Jennifer Prince on lead guitar and vocals, Upsetwill release its massively hooky debut record, She's Gone, this fall.

With 12 songs in just under 30 minutes, it's a pop-punk album that immediately sounds classic, full of unshakeable hooks and the sincerest of shouts. It is fitting that She's Gone will see a release with Don Giovanni Records; the record could easily fit in the record collections of Ergs or Lemuria fans. She's Gone was recorded primarily at Koehler's house in April of 2013 by Kyle Gilbride of Swearin'.

As a songwriter, Koehler draws on the snarky angst and punk simplicity of her previous bands, with a delivery that masks angry and cheeky lyrics with a sweet-sung and wide-eyed infliction. She's Gone opens with "Back To School," conveying that sense of first-day anxieties and uncertainty that comes with a return to an old routine. "First day back's a heart attack," Koehler sings. It's an intro to the sort of personal and relatable lyrics she sings throughout, full of anxious introspection. "Game Over" (written and sung by Jenn Prince) is bored and angsty, channeling distant vox and 90s-indebted noise-pop guitars; "Never Wanna" is an urgent and impatient earworm. "I just don't know what to do / I can't stop thinking of you," Koehler sings.

"Queen Frosteen" uses childlike, upbeat rhymes and a sticky chorus to set up her indictment of a friendship gone wrong. "When she sets the scene / it's a sugarcoated fantasy," she sings, in a way that's so overly sugar-sweet, it almost sounds sarcastic. "Queen Frosteen, my enemy / she's everything and I'm nobody / Queen Frosteen, my enemy." The closing track sounds similarly burned and pissed about it. "This was a lesson learned / this is goodbye," the band sings, girl-gang style. "That's not what friends are for."

She's Gone has moments of self-doubt and resonant angst ("I can't remember feeling worse than this," Koehler sings on "Oxfords and Wingtips") but it has a sense of humor about it as well; "About Me" even starts with a giggle. It's a sort of record that's not afraid to have sincere open-book, downer moments, but doesn't take itself too seriously.


Growing up.

As a prospect it can be terrifying, sad, and worst of all, inevitable. But on I Want to Grow Up, her second album for Hardly Art, Colleen Green lets us know that we don't have to go it alone.

This latest collection of songs follows a newly 30-year-old Green as she carefully navigates a minefield of emotion. Her firm belief in true love is challenged by the inner turmoil caused by entering modern adulthood, but that doesn't mean that her faith is defeated. With a nod to her heroes, sentimental SoCal punks The Descendents, Green too wonders what it will be like when she gets old. Throughout songs such as "Some People," "Deeper Than Love," and the illustrative title track, the listener has no choice but to feel the sympathetic growing pains of revelatory maturation and the anxieties that come along with it.

Sonically the album is a major change for the LA-based songwriter, who has come to be known for her homemade recordings and merchandise. Her past offerings have been purely Green; testaments to her self-sufficiency and, perhaps, trepidation. This time, she's got a little help from her friends: the full band heard here includes JEFF the Brotherhood's Jake Orrall and Diarrhea Planet's Casey Weissbuch, who collaborated with Green over ten days at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, TN.

I Want to Grow Up is an experience, not unlike life: questioning, learning, taking risks. And in true CG fashion, a quote from a beloved 90s film seems the perfect summation: "Understanding is reached only after confrontation."