SUPER 8: “Keep Doing It”

Paul ‘Trip’ Ryan’s one-man jangle-pop machine rolls on with the lead single from Retro Metro

Some musicians form bands. Paul ‘Trip’ Ryan just becomes one. As SUPER 8, the multi-instrumentalist writes, performs, records, and produces everything himself, and has been doing so for eleven albums now with a consistency that would be remarkable even if the songs weren’t this good. They are, though, and “Keep Doing It,” the lead single from his latest album Retro Metro, is as good an entry point as any into a catalogue that deserves far more attention than it gets.

The video drops you straight into SUPER 8’s wheelhouse: bright, ringing guitars that split the difference between The Byrds and Teenage Fanclub, a vocal melody that hooks you on first listen and rewards the tenth, and a rhythmic bounce that owes something to the garage-psych revival without ever tipping into pastiche. Ryan has clearly spent time with the Allah-Las, Thee Oh Sees, and The Searchers, but the end result sounds less like homage than like someone who simply grew up breathing this music and now exhales it naturally.

Retro Metro is SUPER 8’s first release on Think Like A Key Music, and it fits the label’s sensibility perfectly: a record rooted in classic songcraft, made by someone who cares more about getting the song right than about chasing whatever sound is trending this quarter. If you’ve ever wished that the jangly, sun-bleached guitar pop of the mid-sixties had never gone away, Ryan is here to tell you it didn’t. It just moved to his home studio.

Watch “Keep Doing It” here. Retro Metro is available now on CD and digital editions from Think Like A Key Music.