Mopar Stars

There’s an innate familiarity to Mopar Stars, and not just because a few familiar names crop up in the credits, including members of Sheer Mag, Poison Ruin, and Zorn. The band has spent a good amount of time absorbing the lessons and lesions of the alternative boom and the bruises of the late ’80s / early ’90s are all over their debut, Official Researchers of The NJ Devil. The band rifles through the sun visor CD binder to nip at Sugar’s blend of beleaguered storytelling and huge pop hooks. There are a few moments that rumble into the major label years of Dino Jr, wielding 2-day hangover delivery to the crunch of guitars. Quite a few cuts here (“Drinkallnite,” “Only Bar In Town”) feel like they could have been cutouts from the Dusted years of Gin Blossoms, retaining the band’s penchant for memorable melodies, but eyeing their early years’ itchiness.It feels like we’ve lived this record already, in the best ways possible.

Comparisons aside, the band’s ability to weave the weariness of small town banality into indelible hooks is admirable. Mopar Stars embody the kind of discomfort that was baked into the bones of their influences. The slow simmer beneath the surface comes boiling to a head as they break through with jealous jibes, ripped knee riffs, and day drunk sighs. The band makes their square peg stories feel lived-in; a soundtrack that seems set for jukebox repeats, college radio rotation, and hours-long road trips to shows across Midwest highways. “Lifetime of Pain” feels like it’s long been the soundtrack to summer’s past, even as it’s set to be the soundtrack to many more to come. There’s a weary heaviness to life in 2026, Mopar Stars seem to come at just the right time to feed a little pop angst into a year without relief.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.