| Alien Boy is guitarist and songwriter Sonia Weber, drummer Derek McNeil, and a rotating cast of Portland, Oregon scene stalwarts. As her bands Wipers-inspired name might imply, Weber is a PDX lifer, and anyone whos spent time in the last decades DIY circuit will recognize something undeniably West Coast in Alien Boys sound: a sharpened, focused take on the heavy guitar pop of the 1980s, chorus pedals and punishing drums the canvas for bold strokes of recollection and yearning. The band coalesced in 2015 around the recording of that years Never Getting Over It, an 8-song pop sprint that boasts an brash debut charm and heartbroken fervor-not to mention an overnight, practice space recording session origin story-thats shamelessly the stuff of underground rock legend. In fact, Alien Boy is the rare band to have digested decades of guitar music mythos without regurgitating cliche at all. Weber may have called a song "Only Posers Fall In Love," but many of her most impactful lyrics come packaged as references that feel deeply genuine rather than forced. "Your my Robert, Im your Patti." "I said I wanna be adored, but no one does it right." At a time when many of her peers seem embarrassed by the Strats slung over their shoulders, Weber busies herself writing six-string anthems that new generations of digital crate-diggers will be obsessing over decades from now. |
