Out in the sun-baked sprawl of the New Mexico desert rock and roll still carries the scent of unwashed denim and spilled beer. On their debut single “Modern Lover” Purse Thief burn through two generations of guitar mythology with the frantic energy of a band speeding down Interstate 40 in a stolen Buick. Frontman Rafael Vigilantics barks name-checks like cursed talismans evoking everyone from Jonathan Richman to Joni Mitchell while chords crunch and scrape against a wall of thumping drums.
The whole track hits with the nervous charge of early The Modern Lovers colliding head-first into the sweaty revivalism of The Stooges. Vigilantics isn’t interested in gentle nostalgia. Instead he spits out lines about David Bowie lying fat inside the ground and Brian Eno declaring lyrics garbage turning pop history into a high-stakes fistfight where lust consistently outperforms love. At 1:07 when the rhythm drops into a driving pulse and the lead guitar rips open a jagged blues-drenched riff the track explodes into pure unvarnished adrenaline.
