Warships :: "Sleeper Hold"

Warships are the latest Los Angeles band to inherent the responsibility of exporting glossy, American pastoral pop. On first single, "Sleeper Hold", not surprisingly using the same producer as Local Natives, the band relies on flickering guitars and a big swimming chorus. The references trend more toward the "best coast" vision of California as laid out long ago by the Mamas and the Papas (or the more recent plagiarisms of Family Of The Year) as the refrain gets drunk on itself, big "oohs", modulated and instantly singable notation. The title, "Sleeper Hold" purports to wax philosophical about the pleasures of unconsciousness, the most memorable lyric being, "tonight you sleep alone", before the arrangement sweeps back across the viewfinder, drifting to the top of the room under its own power and deserved grandiosity. 

Family of the Year :: "St. Croix"

While Family of the Year's latest single, "St. Croix" isn't necessarily new, it will officially come out on October 27, and the band is now offering it for free download. The slick and soaring bit of guitar pop references loose instructions like, "getting away", and rhymes "motion" with "ocean" in either the least ironic or the most winning way possible. As a bit of pop, it is undeniably defensible as a vote in favor of its soaring chorus and instantly memorable hooks, even if the lyrics leave something to be desired and the Southern Hemisphere metaphors lay, even pleasantly, a bit heavy. But, "St. Croix" isn't about higher order truths, rather it aims itself at our most visceral selves, lovers of melody and those warm guitars that seem to have a language of their own.

St. Croix by Family of the Year

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

Family Of The Year :: "Stupidland"

Family Of The Year closed out our summer in methodical and unrushed fashion. On this go round, "Stupidland", the band finds a skip in their step to match their silky group harmonies. In terms of vocals, think GROUPLOVE but more campfire and less sprinting through fields, although even "Stupidland" has a moment of explosiveness near its close. Both reflect heavily on youth, in this case a place where "all you dreams" sit next to your foolish decision making, money spent in bars or, a post-adolescent pastoral, a pile of dirty socks outside your bedroom. All of this divides through the common denominator of exuberance, these beautiful and broken days of untold promise, not yet ground down or worn smooth by the passage of the world. Even to be able to joke about the foolishness of dreams tells you that Family Of The Year still believe in the truth value of their promise. And that is something to hold onto, even while you're getting your mail delivered to Stupidland.

Listen :: Family Of The Year - "Stupidland"

Family of the Year :: "Summer Girl"

Like a badly written movie the summer season is always built to have an ending that is either overly nostalgic or pedantically allegorical. There might not be any deep lessons here, only rough-hewn frames on blurry images and half-written narrative. It is the close of the season of dilated time. Family of the Year will bear this out for us with vocals so smooth and harmonies so packed together, they sound like a sun-drenched, and very human, THX intro. The chord-progression is from the heart-breaking school, one last weekend with great friends and the memory of a season that always feels a little like it both did and didn't really happen.
Summer Girl by CRC Music