The Head and the Heart
I haven’t gotten to see these folks live yet, but their self-titled debut album has been on constant rotation in my car. The record gets better and better as I listen to it over and over – a truly impressive effort with zero duds. Like Mumford & Sons (another band with whom I have fallen into a deep and tireless love), this band masters the multi-part song, making drastic tempo and rhythm changes feel completely natural with beautiful, memorable Americana hooks. I’ve already come to them pretty late in the game – most of their gigs right now are opening for larger, sold-out acts like Vampire Weekend and The Weepies, plus they are getting tons of love from KEXP and NPR. It’s only a matter of time before they are a buzz name coast to coast.
Below are some live KEXP sessions of the first two songs on their album:
Ravenna Woods
I saw this band play a killer set at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard a few weeks ago after hearing their name around town for a while. The energy in the live show was fantastic, and having the alternate drum kit was really interesting and fun to watch. I have not heard much from the record yet – with a band like this I almost want to see them live a few more times to solidify my love before I take them home with me. Those indie rockers and their reverb-heavy studio leanings can play with your heart so…
Hey Marseilles
This was initially one of Meg’s listen-at-the-record-store finds, and then a name that came up repeatedly in my conversations with folks about local bands. Big time orchestration on the whole album – reminds me of Chicago orchestral-poppers Canasta.
The Young Evils
I wrote about The Young Evils a while back after seeing them open for The Shondes right after I got to Seattle. Since then, they have released their debut album Enchanted Chapel and have been getting some great bookings and KEXP love. Plus they’ve made a couple really good music videos:
Megan Larson
After meeting Megan at a mutual friend’s birthday party we’ve become big time songwriting buddies. It’s been absolutely wonderful having someone so talented here in Seattle with whom I can workshop new songs. As I’m sure you can tell from the video below she’s a great singer/songwriter – this song “Bottle Caps” gets stuck in my head on the regular:
The Elderly
This is here as a teaser. This acoustic band kind of crashed a house party that I played a couple weeks ago and absolutely blew us all away with their three-part harmony and beautiful songwriting a la Iron and Wine or Simon & Garfunkel. The Elderly’s debut EP is coming out on Nov. 2 at Chop Suey, but I’ve got one in my CD player right now after doing an interview with them last night. You’ll be hearing much more from me about these folks!
