Cheap Perfume

Bare Wires patent their own brand of electrified garage punk, fusing glam glitter pop with garage punk grime, producing a sound that has been called everything from "Soft Punk" to "Leather Jacket Rock". The Oakland-based trio started in 2007 as a side project of Matthew Melton with the release of a crude garage punk single entitled "Voodoo Doll," released on European label Solid Sex Love Doll. Adding his own analog recording system into the mix in search of a rawer sound, Melton continued to record under the name Bare Wires, releasing the Artificial Clouds LP on Tic Tac Totally in 2009. With solid mid-fi production and a minimalist aesthetic, Artificial Clouds disposed the jagged, proto-punk edges of the previous recordings and moved towards a smoother, hook-laden, but no less scrappy sound. Bare Wires new "smooth punk" aesthetic was expressed on the "Let Down" 7" (Milk n Herpes), a dirty, sleazy pair of fuzz-doused songs with guitars ripping through a crunching amplifier on a hazy cloud of smoke. With their latest album, Cheap Perfume, Melton delivers ten stadium-ready tracks of glam-infused, rock n' roll gems, still remaining true to the sincerity and authenticity that has become his songwriting trademark.