Album review: Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
March 17th, 2010
Local Natives Gorilla Manor [French Kiss]
If the name Local Natives has been crossing your sight path for the last six months, that’s because their debut album was actually released in the UK back in November via Infectious Records (Ash, Temper Trap).
Based out of Los Angeles, the five-piece were wisely snapped up by Les Savy Fav bassist Syd Butler’s Frenchkiss label (Passion Pit, The Dodos), which just recently gave Gorilla Manor a North American release.
I’m not the first and definitely won’t be the last to indicate that the band has received most of their sizable buzz because their sound is a carefully calculated mixed bag of every current indie rock sub-genre.
“Wide Eyes” hovers with its boundless guitar scapes and catapults into rhythmic thrusts just as Yeasayer did on their debut. The airy Appalachian folk of Fleet Foxes carries “Sun Hands” and “Cubism Dream.” Single “Camera Talk” falls under the Caribbean vibes Vampire Weekend has ridden to the top of the charts with its abrupt Calypso-flavoured breakdown. And a cover of Talking Heads’ “Warning Sign” is, well, deliberate, I imagine.
As The Guardian said in their review, it’s impossible not to make comparisons as you listen to Gorilla Manor. But we as a music-consuming society can’t seem to get through an album without some kind of association. If anything Local Natives give us multiple opportunities to play our favourite “spot the influence” game, and really, when the execution and songwriting is this spotless and inviting, why not sit back and dig in?
Tags: Frenchkiss, Gorilla Manor, Local Natives
Posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 9:04 am by Cam and is filed under Reviews, The New Music.
