The Elected
Sun, Sun, Sun

THE REVIEW

At first glance, the cover of this "Sun, Sun, Sun" would have made a great impression on some old-country recording or thereabouts, so much is the "yellowing" of an old attic record that pervades that image. But behind that cover, behind that mountain picture, one finds 14 sweet and bitter folk-pop gems of such pleasure that their charm would melt like snow in the sun if, with a detached demeanor, we hesitated even for a moment before entering the album, into that cabin by the mountain lake, to discover what lies inside.

It would be discovered then that inside doesn't reside some seventy-year-old fisherman ready to tell us his stories but, with a similar temperament, a very young band yet already so nostalgic and melancholic. Having reached their second long effort, this American band (born from a limb of Rilo Kiley called Blake Sennett) manages to confirm itself as a reality extremely skilled in handling a rather "heavy" genetic heritage: if The Band had made a will, they surely would have deposited their own "soulness" in a piece like "Did me good". But despite this "old" attitude, Sennett and company sound at the same time exquisitely indie-pop.

Thus, among the odds and ends deposited by time in that cabin by the lake, emerge a lap steel, the inevitable acoustic, a slide-guitar, and the spell is cast: how to resist the invitation of "Would you come with me"? Beneath all this dust, in some hidden corner, you can discover a piano reminiscent of Elliott Smith ("Fireflies in a steel mill"), open-hearted Okkervil River ("It was love") as well as some languor reminiscent of Bright Eyes (the magical "Desiree"). The "chosen ones" know what to do with all the dust, not stopping to contemplate it or worrying about removing it but demonstrating with great freshness and ease the ability to create music that never risks descending into clichéd banality.