California Wives :: "Marianne"

The surprise isn't how charming and singable California Wives' music can be, it's how easy they make it all sound. Like you and three acquaintances could go down to Guitar Center, learn a few chords, pick up some equipment and then sign a deal with Vagrant Records. On "Marianne", they update their stylistic direction from inheritors to the Stills' throne to something closer to Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - and here it doesn't help that the second word of the first verse is "heartbreak" and fourth, "teenage". The big chiming synthesizers in post-chorus back the band's trademark driving guitars (see: "Blood Red Youth" and "Tokyo") all around fatalist lyrics like, "They will find you out, even though you tried". The chorus, one of those refrains still rooted in proper nouns for when bands are young and still write about cities and girls, is charming and accessible, a final trip through those big guitars and huge booming synths, democratic enough to feel like anyone could have written them and elitist enough that no one did.

Yukon Blonde :: "Fire"

"They're setting fire to the ocean", Yukon Blonde warn us. Now, barring the oil-spill-lightning-strike scenario, this is probably figurative language of the suspend-the-laws-of-physics-the-world-is-melting type. The stakes are, as they recently seem to be, high. As a point of clarification, or simply to up the ante, the band closes its list of things that are being set ablaze with the chilling one-liner, "They're setting fire to my face". Summarized as an English sentence: It's the apocalypse. But, the edge of disaster never quite sounds so bad, as warm acoustic guitars and golden harmonies that evoke The Stills at their most alt-country or Family Of The Year, make Yukon Blonde's "Fire" a perfect summer single. Think of a less dishonest Fleet Foxes, or driving windows down into the setting sun, getting damn close and hot as hell.

Yukon Blonde - Fire by killbeat music

The Stills :: "Being Here" and "Rooibos/Palm Wine Drinkard"

The Stills are back with a third record, the ominously titled Oceans Will Rise, some bad-ass cover art (above), and a killer first single. We first heard "Being Here" last summer in Prospect Park. Its chorus was so inspired by the arena-rock sound of U2 (later force fed paint-thinner and called Angels and Airwaves) that my friend Chuck sent me a text that read: "who the fuck do they think they are? U2?" It was close approximation but it wasn't meant as insult. I think.

"Being Here" is big. It won't crack radio but you can still spin it in your car/iPod/life this summer and appreciate the fact that The Stills have taken another step in their development. They've done a post-punk record, Logic Will Break Your Heart and killed it. They've done an Americana-inspired, seemingly private second album, Without Feathers. And it was good. And now they're moving on and up. When we saw them this winter, they weren't using stage lights - just bare florescent bulbs. They were wearing all black on stage. It seemed to say, "yeah, so we're not going to fuck around anymore." I guess if you take enough shit for your second album, eventually you get angry and decide to level people on your third try. This is a band ready to play bigger venues. This is a band sick of hearing about their line-up changes. This a band on a mission.

Record drops August 19 but you can hear these two songs until then:

Listen ::
The Stills - "Being Here"
The Stills - "Rooibos/Palm Wine Drinkard"