The Popguns‘ first album after 20 years away from the recording studio shows no signs of rust; if anything, Pop Fiction sounds like it could have been released during the band’s heyday in the early ’90s and been considered another in a series of great noisy, jangly indie pop gems. Featuring the powerfully simple vocals of Wendy Pickles, some loud guitars, lots of melancholy, and hooks sharp enough to cut through the years, the album is grown folks’ indie pop of the highest caliber. Produced with care by the bandmembers themselves, the album sounds airlifted out of the past but not stuck in it, despite referencing one of their early classics, “Waiting for the Winter,” on “Still Waiting for the Winter.”
