Those of us who have lived in northern enough climes to experience snow in the winter months are the ones who, I think, can most perfectly relate to the mood of Lee & Willbee’s debut album North Carolina. A dichotomy of cold and warm permeates the album; much like the shiver of reality you receive emerging from bed on a frigid winter morning, with covers still wrapped tightly around your shoulders, planting your feet on the shock of cold floor, you move to evaluate what the world has brought overnight. When you pull your curtains, the world that awaits you is silent and pristine in a layer of white. It is a scene both familiar and strange, where each step forward is uncharted, no matter how many times you’ve walked that same path. North Carolina seeks to warm that snowbound silence, as much as it urges you to go out into that cold whitened landscape and explore the world anew.

Though North Carolina is moody and melancholy, this geographically dispersed threesome’s folk-meets-Notwist sound still maintains enough humor to celebrate life’s simpler pleasures: fornication, a 40 and a sack, and the resignation of self determination. The making of North Carolina recalls the making of Postal Service’s Give Up as it was crafted and recorded by three friends who currently live thousands of miles apart: Markus Willbee in Salt Lake City, Lee Chameleon in Chicago, and guitarist Patrick Roche in Seattle. The comparisons don’t stop there,  songs like “Loves Not Worth It,” feature the long delay and reverb of early Death Cab records and the album swoons with the downtrodden yet warm electronic strains of the Postal Service. Unlike other current Postal Service comparisons, this isn’t a “Ben Gibbard should kick these guys in the shins” comparison, rather the spirit of the album and how it was made is much in the same vein of what made Give Up so special.

Though electronic elements are threaded throughout the record, the nine songs still retain a distinctly low-key “bedroom” feel that envelops the listener and communicates the analog reality of the material. Given it’s such an intimate sounding album, North Carolina is best when listened to on headphones, or while driving alone in the car, where the beat of windshield wipers on high seem to perfectly keep time with tracks like “North Carolina” and “Tumbleweed.” The stand out track of the album “Day of Sunshine,” which journeys from weeping resignation to reassuring anthem, is one of my most listened to songs of 2009. North Carolina is an album well-equipped to warm the freeze of a mid-western sized blizzard or a broken heart, and it is filled with reminders to keep moving in the wake of loneliness and lost love. It is a fast winter friend.

It seems I wasn’t  the only one who felt a distinct sense of season with this record. The person who filmed the band’s first video for the song “Snowtrain” used dark winter scenes entirely:

M. Bison ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

With this week’s self-titled release, M. Bison are living up to the high standard the band has set for themselves with their live performances, by embracing what they do best — adventurous pop songs. Songs that would be completely over-the-top if they weren’t so god damn catchy, touching, full of humor, and beautifully orchestrated.

I have to confess, my fondness for this album comes as a bit of a surprise.  I’ve been seeing the band play around town for the past three years and while I’ve always been impressed with their live sets, especially two memorable  nights where they acted as Seattle’s best cover band, M. Bison was never anything I came home and listened to.  I enjoyed M. Bison, but I wasn’t excited by them. My, how things have changed. Since I received their record earlier this Fall, there’s been few shows I’ve been anticipating as much as their record release tonight at the Lo-Fi with We Wrote the Book On Connectors and Heatwarmer.

The band’s full length debut is a surprising stunner. The album opens up with “Samurai Showdown,” a song you’ll recognize if you’ve ever seen M. Bison live. It starts out all playful pop before going into a section I can only describe as an 8-bit aria. These ’80s video game inspired nuggets pepper the album in between straight up pop licks that wouldn’t sound out of place in heydays of The Kinks. (If I had to compare M. Bison to anyone, Ray Davies is the big name I would drop.) That M. Bison’s sound is hard to pin-point is a great thing. They sound like everyone and no one else. It’s theatrical and earnest. Saccharine and sarcastic. It’s piano pop, it’s soaring video game melodies, it’s a simple song that sounds so right on listen one that it feels like it’s been around for 40 years.

It’s an album of constant surprises, especially with the band’s signature twisting bridges that take songs like “Johnny’s Got a Girlfriend” and “All Things To All People” to places you’d never expect they’d go. These explorations, on themes and styles, are all made possible because M. Bison is made up of some of Seattle’s most skillful and accomplished musicians. These guys are no joke. I’ve heard the word genius used to describe pianist Brian Kinsella on more than one occasion by men who have themselves been described as savants. M. Bison are musicians’ musicians.

The album is perfectly pleasant pop that will burrow in your head, but that’s okay, because you don’t want it to leave.  A couple listens in and you’ll find yourself belting along to M. Bison’s lushly layered harmonies like it’s a show tune. I’m pleased to report that M. Bison is no longer just a band to enjoy live, they’re no longer just Seattle’s best cover band, they’re not just a fascinating quirk. With this album and their considerable talent, M. Bison is exciting, incredibly so, and definitely something I’m coming home and listening to now. Easily, one of my favorite local releases of 2009.

[Editors Note: With this post Sound on the Sound welcome's our second new writer in a week to the fold. Man-about-Ballard Brady Sprouse offered to commit his opinions on local albums to digital ink for Sound on the Sound, and we graciously accepted. In this first review, he's giving few props to a fellow Ballardian. -josh]

A friend of mine jokingly referred to Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers self-titled debut as “the best Emmylou Harris record in the last ten years.” The comparison is easy to make. With a voice as sharp and equally as smooth as Harrisʼ, Muth lets her songwriting style - deftly reinforced by the serious country chops of The Lost High Rollers - create a sound, and record, distinctly her own.

You gotta love that she played some of her earliest gigs at the rough and tumble The Bit Saloon. Among some of the hardest punk and hardcore acts this side of The Funhouse, Zoe was styling her sound with songs like “You Only Believe Me When Iʼm Lying,” full of glossy pedal steel and dusty mountain strings, and “Hey Little Darlinʼ” a swinging folky kind of honky tonk, with equal parts Flying Burrito Brothers and Ira and Charlie Louvin. Together they make a perfect one-two opening to a record that takes you back somewhere in time when country music wasnʼt ruled by pop templates and crossover singles.

Stream: Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers - “You Only Believe Me When I’m Lying”
Download it via KEXP’s Song of the Day (August 7, 2009)

As it evolves, the album starts to feel like driving an old pickup somewhere in Montana or the deserts of eastern Washington. The sixth song out of twelve is fittingly called “Middle of Nowhere”, which is how it sounds. A loping mosey of a song, lamenting that being home can be as far away as being lost in the middle of nowhere. “The Running Kind” with itʼs wispy folkiness and delta dobro, and “Hard Luck Love” and itʼs Cajun accordion create a couplet that keeps the listener moving through the lost times, through lost love, and eventually back home again.

The thing I like most about this record is, simply put, it sounds good in a bar. Itʼs the kind of thing you want to hear on a quiet afternoon with a beer and whiskey. Happy or sad, on the road, or two blocks from home.

This week’s release of Pearl Jam’s new record BACKSPACER on their own label XX, as well as a hometown return for two nights at Key Arena, marks for them a step back into the limelight. As well as an opportunity for Pearl Jam to showcase a record made for themselves and their fans, unencumbered by the weight of a contract or any other extraneous expectations. With that luxury of time and resources, Pearl Jam did what everyone wanted them to do: deliver a group of songs definitively the Pearl Jam of today.

Eddie Vedder’s voice is sounding as good as ever in my opinion, and by stacking three driving songs in a row to begin, “Gonna See My Friend,” “Got Some,” and “The Fixer,” they’ve ensured a memorable start to the record. “Supersonic” and “Johnny Guitar” round out the count on the classic fist pumpers to five and with just that Pearl Jam fans have something to be pleased with. That’s pretty much it for the loud and fast numbers though, the only vestiges of a band that originally made it’s name as a dark brooding bunch of outsiders from nowheresville. On the whole in BACKSPACER, little sign is left of the grit and angst that would musically link them to Seattle’s most famous musical era (though “Gonna See My Friend” sounds feels very Mudhoney until that weird high vocal moment in bridge). Making up the other half of the album are a couple of power ballads as well as some unexpectedly quiet numbers.

Though I have to admit that the production on the record is top-notch, for much of the record I’m reminded of the big glossy arena and video rock of the eighties instead of the edgy band with a chaotic energy that dominated the charts in the 90’s, or even the band that reasserted themselves with a song like “World Wide Suicide” a few short years ago. In the slow burner “Force of Nature” I have to resist the urge to find a punching bag like I’m in the midst of an eighties karate movie training sequence. (This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I can appreciate Journey.) And tell me “Unthought Known” doesn’t immediately remind you of U2, past or present. Actually, with this many years behind them, their stadium nature and the freedom to be essentially autonomous, Pearl Jam reminds me quite a lot of U2 in many ways. Ultimately they are a stadium band now, and while with BACKSPACER they haven’t done anything drastically out of left field, they have put together a sturdy collection of stadium ready songs that are probably best played at full volume.

Thanks to the band, one lucky reader who throws their name in the hat in the comments by Thursday September 24 at 12-noon will be randomly chosen to receive a Vinyl edition of BACKSPACER. If your comment doesn’t appear right away, we’ll make sure it’s approved in time for the drawing.

Those who don’t win can obtain a vinyl copy of BACKSPACER directly from the band or hit up a local independent record store. It is also digitally available on iTunes as well. Target is the only major retailer with exclusive rights to sell the record, so I suppose it can be had there too.

Tickets are also still apparently available for Tuesdays show. Provided you are willing to shell out $66 and then some to Ticketmaster.

D. Black and Spaceman ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

“Forget about yesterday, today won’t be the same, and we won’t know, what tomorrow brings…” - Refrain from “Yesterday” by D. Black on Ali’Yah

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine the person we once were. We dread to recall the downright stupid philosophies of our youth and the havoc our own actions have wrought as a result. Yet those are the things that made us who we are now, the important mistakes and miscalculations that changed our trajectory in life and served as learning experiences that (hopefully) made us wiser in the end. And so it can be just as hard to imagine life as being lived any other way. Without a doubt Sportn’ Life rapper D. Black doesn’t relish his former self, and though that life plays a key role in the compelling impetus of his second record Ali’Yah, he seems determined to move beyond his youth with purpose.

Talking big and acting big is part of the hip hop game, and D. Black’s early material reflects that expectation, doing his best to amplify the often gritty vision of urban life-as-struggle. For Ali’Yah though, D. Black is done playing that game the same way. Like his labelmate Fatal Lucciauno, he’s made a life decision to control his own path, and not let the expectations or demands of a fickle industry distract him from his true calling as an urban philosopher committed to music. The first song from Ali’Yah “What I Do” lays all of this out literally while in “The Return” he’s bluntly rhymes “I can’t associate with them fake ones/to add to their fake bullets coming out of fake guns.”

Socially-conscious hip-hop isn’t exactly new in the Seattle area, yet in Ali’Yah D. Black takes the road less traveled, earnestly depicting himself, his former life, and his own impact in the context of the real world consequences. And he is thinking about impact, not just getting by by doing what you “have to” do. Interludes typically inhabited by repping or something funny or stupid, are instead setting the tone of challenge on the record just as much as the songs. At the end of “What I Do” the channel changes and a voice pipes up: “The question stands, as a genre that uplifted and inspired so many of us, is it now poisoning itself?” These are hot words for one who is himself trying to gain traction in the hip-hop scene, and some will call him preachy for it, yet the force of his example on this record serves to quash any weak retorts that it’s not so easy to turn your back on the game. Not simply inflammatory words, he’s genuinely attempting to engage a nuanced conversation from the inside.

For Wednesday night’s CD release show at the Crocodile, much of the local hip-hop community was in the house either to take a step on stage or simply to show support for D. Black and his latest effort. Spaceman was hosting, and he was determined to make sure his boy had a great show. Darrius Willrich started the night out at the keys, bringing me back to my Stevie Wonder period in college. Dyme Def then followed They Live! who both put up energetic performances to a slowly warming crowd. Once D. Black hit the stage though, the crowd quickly thickened up front into a sea of swaying hands raised in in the shape of an “L.”

While D. Black may be done playing by anyone else’s rules, he certainly hasn’t turned his back on bringing the energy and performance that’s generally expected of a quality hip-hop show. Fully engaging the crowd, he was all smiles and thank you’s, especially for the night’s DJ and prolific producer Vitamin D, a tireless advocate for local hip-hop artists for years. Grynch, Spaceman and Fatal Lucciauno all reprised the roles they played as guests on the album (much like D. Black’s recent Bumbershoot performance), while Sportn’ Life “princess” Marissa made a late set appearance to provide backing vocals on Ali’Yah’s first single “Yesterday.”

As D. Black did the roll call, “Where my South Enders at? Where my North Enders at? Where my blacks at? Where My Jews at?….” he included every group, and got a loud response every time. This moment demonstrated his wide ranging appeal in a striking manner, yet given the dynamic performance it came as no surprise. The next day Abbey commented via twitter, “I’m going to finally say it out loud — local rockers could learn a thing or two from local hip hoppers in terms of performance.” As I left the Croc that night, I couldn’t help but think exactly the same thing.

Darrius Willrich ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

They Live! ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Dyme Def ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

D. Black ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Flickr: D. Black’s Ali’Yah Release Party at the Crocodile

Out next month on Saddle Creek Records, Land of Talk’s Fun and Laughter EP marks the return of vocalist Lizzie Powell after being sidelined by the necessity for late in 2008 with vocal ailments. Now healthy and rarin’ to go Fun and Laughter’s four new songs denote a sophisticated turn for the band, a veer away from experimenting with fast and unique guitar and vocal rhythms as a focus, and instead placing emphasis on framing the uniqueness of her voice in new ways. Powell can really sing, and these songs show it (although I admit they may have been a bit heavy handed with the vocal layering plus reverb).

MP3: “May You Never” by Land of Talk from Fun and Laughter courtesy of Saddle Creek Records

As opposed to Land of Talk’s previous LP’s featuring succinct rhythmic idea’s with pace that led to shorter songs, each of these songs have developed buildups and just feel a bit more fragile, a direction indicated by a Fleetwood Mac homage from their last record, “It’s Okay.” The song we’re featuring above certainly contains a few choice bars of Powell’s identifiable guitar strum and even has room for some kooky guitar antics, but her voice is clearly out front and really the star if the show now. We couldn’t be more happy that she’s back.

Peep one of the new video’s for songs from the last album that are included on the EP below. This one is for “The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle):”

Fun and Laughter arrives October 13th. Pre-order the Limited Edition Fun and Laughter directly with Saddle Creek Records for a mere $7.

Land of Talk visits Seattle at the High Dive with Virgin Islands on Thursday November 5th. Tickets are available via Ticketweb for $10 adv.

In addition to pondering how a person without a wristband might pass the vast expanse of the fence surrounding Memorial Stadium, something we’ve all done at one time or another, among Davey Brozowski’s favorite Bumbershoot memories are his young self learning the power of the crowd. “I remember crowd-surfing for the first time ever at a Gas Huffer show at Bumbershoot. When I was sixteen or something. I’m not a very daring person, so it was exciting. I was like ‘What am I doing trusting myself to be tossed around by all these strangers in this dark sweaty place?!’”

This week Brozowski will make a return to Bumbershoot not as a young fan, but as drummer for the Black Whales who are performing on the locally focused stage in our city’s cathedral of rock, the Experience Music Project. That in the year and a half since they’ve first started playing shows this band has been able to secure regular opening spots for national openers at venues like the Crocodile and Chop Suey and are now invited to play in all of the city’s major rock festivals has been an impressive and somewhat pleasant surprise to a group of people who were initially simply interested in using a shared practice space their previous bands had occupied. “Kind of a fluke,” muses Brozowski over the phone from one of the many hotels he inhabits while on tour doing a stint as a drum tech for another touring band.

After a process of six months of informal playing together following the dissolution of previous bands the Tallbirds and Tourist, the group had written a few songs they were happy with and decided to commit them to tape with engineer Zack Reinig. “I don’t think anyone went into it with any expectations,” Brozowski says. “Let’s just have fun, and explore these ideas of things we want to try.” Then, through the course of the sessions that would result in the Origins EP (out Sept. 15th on Mt. Fuji Records), a cohesive band with modern rock edge emerged.

Stream: “Origins” by Black Whales from the Origins EP

MP3: “Books on Tape” by Black Whales courtesy of Mt. Fuji Records

The seven songs on Origins EP keenly reflect that philosophy of trying to have fun and creating something new, despite occasional heady and unhappy lyrics about dealing with moving on. The music emanates an optimistic sense of decisive purpose and perpetual forward motion, the feel of the songs can feeling intentionally counter to lyrics which often depict the opposite feeling in real life as in “Running in Place” in the unforgettable line ‘Please be good to us/cause we’re young and dumb/never wrong.’

The final song of the seven “Roll with the Punches,” is an upbeat number that caps this sense of optimism, and a general theme of moving on from the past with eyes raised to the horizon, with a stark declaration of perseverance. The songs first lines “I cheated to be here/to be the next in line/cause this kind of thing/doesn’t happen all the time” seems a recognition of the necessity to do whatever it takes long term to go after that once in a lifetime dream. Wanting something more than anything means taking extraordinary measures, enduring the bad with the good, rolling with the punches, and occasionally breaking a bone because of it. And it means falling hard because you care, and getting right back up because your fall made the fires of ambition rage even more strongly than before.

The Black Whales play the EMP stage at Bumbershoot at 2pm on Sunday September 6th.

The Origins EP arrives in local record stores everywhere September 15th.

I wanna live and let it all be / I wanna lose this darkness inside of me / so ladies let love in and let all go / we are the wind that don’t know tomorrow
- Time is Right Now” from Listen to the Thunder

Today I sat down with the intention of writing my first actual record review in some time about The Maldives just released LP Listen to the Thunder via Seattle’s Mt. Fuji Records. It was mapped out in my head beforehand to be the usual spiel about how these gents are making everyone else in Seattle look bad right now, how they’re on the forefront of modern country rock movement locally, and yadda yadda yadda. This morning though, after my first close listen of the record, with tears welling up in my eyes, I realized I couldn’t write that review. Not because those things aren’t completely true, but because that would no longer be addressing what it is that makes the Maldives different and special to me anymore, nor talking about what the album is really communicating.

How is it that this massive country rock collective is making me cry, you’re probably asking. I was asking myself that same question. It was unexpected. As I sat with no distractions, drinking in the album and writing notes about each of the songs, the more I examined the words and myself, the more it felt as though front-man Jason Dodson’s words were speaking directly to me. Of my hopes, of my fears, and of my mistakes. Of things that recently have become daily points of meditation on my growing uncertainty about my place in the world where I never had even considered them before. It’s an album that seems to be foreshadowing the choices I’m making right now, while reminding me of the poor choices that I’ve made in the past. And I’ve made plenty of those.

While I can’t guarantee that you’ll get the same feeling out of this album as I did, (actually I hope you don’t), I think you’re definitely gonna get something out of it. Which is more than I can say for most albums I listen to these days. These songs are complete idea’s with the developed emotion behind them embedded into the music. Maybe it’s that I’ve grown older, and I’m valuing the people around me and my relationships more acutely, but most rock today just sounds to me like a whole lot of whining and not a lot of living. And there-in lies the heart of what is so special about the Maldives music for me now. This music is coming from a place of living life, not fighting life.

MP3: “Tequila Sunday” by the Maldives courtesy of Mt. Fuji Records

In the case of Listen to the Thunder, had I heard it a year ago, I don’t think it would have hit me with such force or I would have thought about it in this way. Even though I’ve been hearing many of these songs for a while now, I just haven’t been thinking about the words so deeply. Last year at this time I was previewing them as one of Bumbershoot’s must see sets, hailing them as “Puget Sound Playboys” and “Wrangler Headbangers” (one of my favorite turns of a phrase I’ve ever originated). A force of rock melded with country, unbound by any rules about making popular music that either genre has created for themselves. I also viewed them as a distinctly male band, one of just a few popular alt(ish)-country male voices in town who loves a rad guitar solo as much as the next schlum. Now, I’m appreciating a whole new layer of human experience within their musical philosophy.

In the first song on the Listen to the Thunder “Goodbye,” also the lead song of the Maldives debut EP which we were so enamored with last year. Dodson sings by repeating “Goo-ood-byeeeeeee-oooooooh” over a heavy, almost solemn beat, his words intertwined with pedal steel, fiddle, and guitar lines. From the listeners perspective, the song can feel a sort of a progression. Through turmoil a coming-to-terms, yet much remains unsaid between the song’s spare lyrics, and we’re left to let the song find our own resolution in the final bittersweet guitar lead guitar lines. Today curiously, I found no resolution at all in that end, or the process of the song at all. I was simply left mournful.

The album’s third track “Cold November,” on the other hand, is a shameless and hopeful love song; that in it’s devout honesty delivers itself from being simply a embarrassing diversion in to romance-land. I always feel a bit embarrassed myself for liking this song so much, yet it raises me out of a bad mood as few songs can. “Cold November” and “Goodbye” both showcase an epic treatment of love, far removed from the superficial and unrealistic portrayal as so often authored by young songwriters who’ve minimal life experience. The reality is: real love means showing it and living it over time, through bad times and with intention, and the Maldives aren’t shy about tapping into that wisdom here. It’s a perspective I myself am still recently coming to terms with as it applies to my own life.

The longest track on the record at 10:35, “Walk Away” might be the most thoughtful track with regard to this notion of living fully. “Walk Away” opens with Dodson mournfully “Ooh-ooh-ooh”-ing over a spare acoustic and piano tracks, before launching into a remembrance of the ghosts that haunt, those of the ones closest to us, inescapable in their absence. To “walk away” is the ultimate human sacrifice, to accept that there is nothing left to do but turn your back on the ones we know we’ll never shake in our consuming love. If it is hard to find resolution in the final moments of “Goodbye,” the guitar led instrumental last half of “Walk Away” serves as almost a second meditation on the topic, one where it’s much easier to find solace and be left with a hopeful vision for the future.

To celebrate the release of this long awaited record and because living means doing a lot of celebrating, starting tonight August 27th, the Maldives are playing three consecutive nights at Ballard’s Tractor Tavern, a venue who are also using the occasion to honor the fifteen years that they’ve been in business. Friday night with Zoe Muth and the Moondoggies is already sold out, but tickets are still available for tonight with North Twin and 17th Chapter. and Saturday with Thee Emergency, SHIM and Pickwick. On Saturday at 4pm the Maldives will also be doing a free in-store at Ballard’s Sonic Boom Records on Market Street. Going to any or all of these shows comes with our highest recommendation.

Facts About Funerals ::: Photos by Josh

Last night Facts about Funerals had a listening party for friends (and pseudo-journalists) in Seattle’s Pioneer Square district and somehow I was invited. Held in the tiny but visually interesting sunken bar that is Marcus’ Martini Heaven (soon to be aptly named Six Feet Under I’m told), the bar floor is located at Seattle’s original street level, and the booths have window holes built into the thick brick walls that face the street. Only now the windows would open up just about six feet below street level. I’ve got to remember this place, they have such good appletini’s. Anyways… about the record.

Titled Love Songs & Funeral Homes, the new Facts About Funerals record is their debut on San Fransisco “boutique label” Evageline Records, and has a decidedly warmer tinge than you might expect from their new(ish) name. Much of the album was recorded in Merseyside, England, the original home district of the Beatles, over an eight day marathon using only analog equipment that had been previously utilized by none other than The Who. This special night songwriter Rob Sharp and guitarist Max Keene stepped up on the tiny stage stage for a few acoustic songs to entertain the largely familiar crowd, with Rob dedicating the first song to his own baby son who was attentively being babysat just off to stage left. Talk about a cute baby…

Love Songs & Funeral Homes is officially out August 5th. You can hear many of the songs at their myspace, including “Cartwheels” which is my no-brainer pick for feel good song of The Summer of 2008. I guess that is if your into Cartwheels. Facts about Funerals will be playing numerous times over the next month and a half, including an official Seattle CD Release show at the Comet August 2nd, and a final show of a West Coast tour at the Tractor Tavern August 29th.

Green Coconut Grass. Yum.

Ravens & Chimes with Lenin ::: photo by Abbey

My favorite not-Seattle album of the summer? Hands down,Reichenbach Falls from NYC’s Ravens & Chimes. The album is an intricately crafted masterpiece. Listening to Reichenbach Falls, it is obvious the album was a labor of love. Every note appears to have been fretted over, that there is nothing happenstance about the album. The song placement is perfect, taking you on a journey that is at once sparsely poetic, yet still so full and rich. Few albums in recent memory have conveyed a place or a feeling so well. The albums that have–Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Bright Eyes Lifted or The Story is in the Soil– led to deserving critical and commercial success for both bands. I expect Reichenbach Falls to do so for Ravens & Chimes.

The band will be back in Seattle for Bumbershoot. And by then they just might be recognized as ’08’s breakout band. If so, they will have earned it with sonic grace and an intense commitment to their craft. You can expect this album to make a strong showing in my best albums of 2008 list.