English Teacher

English Teacher is a post-punk band that remains firmly post-rock adjacent while also engaging in guitar-driven melodic indie rock patches that they stitch together in their music. Underneath all the jangly, swirly guitar and frequent speak-singing by guitarist/vocalist Lily Fontaine, the band has a few prog-like ideas that they tap into as well. They rarely follow the conventional strong structures going from A to B to bridge, then back. Instead, they let their songs go through dramatic changes with a combination of tempo shifts, interweaving and mutating melodies, rapid math rock-ish arpeggios, and stutter beats that end up creating narrative tension in quite a bit of their songs. When combined with Fontaine's observational humor, snippets of her poetry and deadpan humor, the result is often captivating.