Original twee-pop from the ’90s seems like a cursed genre — with good bands damned to obscurity and, perhaps, better known for their influence than their actual musical output. (We can argue about this later.) Nirvana put the entire genre on the map by covering a bunch of Vaselines songs. Kurt Cobain got the logo of Calvin Jonson’s (of Beat Happening) record label, K Records, tattooed on his arm, and now we’ve got a bunch of bands sounding just like Black Tambourine and Tiger Trap. All those are really great, but so are many of the ones they’ve influenced.
     An all-girl trio from San Francisco, Grass Widow play a bouncy and meticulously interwoven kind of post-punk, as frenetic guitar-picking and bass-plucking create a tumultuous backdrop for their sweet harmonized vocals. And though there isn’t much variety among the songs on the 26-minute Past Time, Grass Widow’s ability to write complex arrangements with such addictive melodies is the missing link between discord and melodious twee pop.

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