Cheerleader :: "Do What You Want"

Opening to what sounds like it could well be some post-Edward Sharpe faux-folksy whistle garbage, Philadelphia's Cheerleader quickly redirect, "Do What You Want" toward the sort of synth-accented Americana that holds Ryan Adams at one end and War on Drugs at the other. The whistled chorus is thankfully overrun by a more useful and pregnant question, "Would it be the same?". The plaintive acoustic guitars offset against lyrics like, "These words are haunted by you," casting an unreliability on both our narrator and the object of his affection. The final, title edict, the blithe, "Do What You Want" rings sarcastic, a modern, catch-all, fuck-it-whatever for a free bird you desperately want to regulate back into your arms.

Eliza and the Bear :: "Upon The North"

One of the most promising acts coming out of Britain today, Eliza and the Bear have released their triumphant new single, "Upon The North." It is in the school of their post-Edward Sharpe pop: big, expansive and Western-inspired Americana mixing with a deep British reverence and elegy. The bridge, a shouting and repeated lyric, "I spent summers away," is filled by organ chords, splashy cymbals and backing vocals, the same formula that makes their debut single, "Brother's Boat" so relentlessly charming. "Upon The North" charges ahead with the same type of exuberance, running without looking down, aimed breathlessly on the horizon in the northern sky, despite the fact that, for the American music consumer, this band's future lies dead west with the setting sun.

Eliza and the Bear :: "Brother's Boat"

Essex, UK band Eliza and the Bear have redrafted gravity on expansive and hooky single, "Brother's Boat." Like a distended and outraged Edward Sharpe, the band traffics in the same always-be-rising orchestral pop first outlined by Polyphonic Spree and later darkened and perfected by Arcade Fire. "Brother's Boat" is more electric guitar driven than any of the aforementioned bands, they are also a perfect "indie crossover," the kind that makes A&R's from Columbia think romantically how this song might look in the trailer for whatever becomes next year's Beasts of the Southern Wild or, better, as the closing 25-seconds of an advertisement for a Nissan automobile. An intern should be scrambling down the hall from their cubicle before the final chorus; this is that good. The two driving lyrics, "just let it go," and "you left your family home," are as brutal as they are oblique, that kind of general, life-affirming pop onto which the listener can project a multitude of personal specifics. By the final, crashing conclusion, it is not just the arrangement that touches its outer markers, it is a band more than ready to expand beyond itself.