Local Natives | The Astral Plane

There’s been a lot of talk about the decline in quality “indie” music since the grand output of 2009, but honestly we’re not all that interested in that kind of talk… especially with Local Natives’ Hummingbird LP on our minds. The Los Angeles-based band broke onto the scene in 2009 with the impressively cohesive Gorilla Manner and immediately garnered an impressive fan base via their oddly harmonic compositions. Four years later and the band is releasing their second album and based on a first listen, it sees the group striving for a more expansive sound. The first half of Hummingbird is decidedly upbeat, while the second half features a lot of sad piano weak that heavily features vocalist Taylor Rice’s range. This dichotomy isn’t totally consistent, but check out “Heavy Feet” and “Colombia” below for a prime example of how the album is devised. Hit the jump to stream the entirety of Hummingbird, which is out now on Frenchkiss/Infectious.

Yes, the photo above is painful

This isn’t really my forte, but it’s raining out and sometimes you just need to indulge in some guitar music. Local Natives are pretty much the quintessential Silver Lake band with just enough enough fringy behavior and technical ability to belie their association with the post-Vampire Weekend “afropop” masses. Now I don’t even want to start on the dumbfuckery that is the label afropop so just going to move on. Local Natives aren’t the most innovative band in the world, but what they do, they do really really well. The harmonies are pitch-perfect and they can actually, you know, play guitar pretty decently. “Breakers” is the lead single off of Hummingbird ( outJanuary 29 on Frenchkiss), the group’s follow up to 2009’s excellent Gorilla Manor. If the track is any indication, the album will will see Local Natives expanding into bolder and broader territory. Stream below.

—The Astral Plane

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Stream Local Natives’ Sophomore LP In Its Entirety

New Local Natives – “Breakers”