These Animals are a four piece band from Brooklyn who make lovely 60s inspired pop music. The four creators of this artful music met, appropriately enough, at art school and they have released two solid EPs in the last two years, including 2011's Souvenir Sessions. If you're in NYC, catch them Saturday night at Bowery Electric.
It's also worth mentioning that they offered me gift certificates to the Olive Garden in exchange for this blog post. While I am a HUGE fan of the Olive Garden, I wrote this strictly because I liked their music a lot (ok... well the gift certificates certainly didn't hurt either. Unlimited salad and breadsticks is a totally acceptable form of payola in my book and I admire their creativity).
Let's break it down. It's 2012. Apparently mainstream music has made an amazing "comeback" - however that is possible for something that is "mainstream" I find questionable - and the music blog? Dead. RIP. But then along comes a band like Cambridge Massachusett's natives You Won't to reassure me that there are still musicians out there for us bloggers to embrace. Bands that are keeping things simple while still challenging us and who don't need David Guetta to make an impact (not that I have anything against David Guetta, his stuff is mad catchy). With their full-length debut, "Skeptic Goodbye," out Feb 14th on Old Flame Records (home of local faves Dinowalrus and Cloud Nothings), high school friends Josh Arnoudse and Raky Sastri have set out to do just that.
Stemming from home-recording and cross-country tape sharing collaborations, there's a little (and sometimes a lot) of twang on knee-slapping sing-along tracks like "Television" and just as much gentle melody and creative twists and turns on single "Ten Years Old." Overall, there is definitely a message of a simplistic innocence and childhood nostalgia to their music that as a listener you can easily get lost in, and that this industry has, in some ways, either forgotten or lost some appreciation for. Is the blog dead? Has mainstream won out? I'd be a skeptic to say goodbye at this point too.
Upcoming shows: 2/15/2012 - Portland, ME - 131 Washington (w/Artie Appleseed, Mango Floss, Heavy on the Juice) - 8pm 2/16/2012 - Cambridge, MA - TT The Bear’s Place (w/Friendly People, Slowdim, The Suitcase Junket) - 8pm 2/17/2012 - New Haven, CT - Underbrook Coffeehouse at Yale University (w/Laurelin Kruse) - 8pm 2/18/2012 - Brooklyn, NY - Union Hall (w/Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Lucius, Julia Read) - 8pm
MP3s are posted for sampling purposes ONLY. I do not post entire albums and STRONGLY ENCOURAGE everyone who reads this blog to pursue the bands you discover here and fall as madly in love with them as I am. That being said, if any label/company/whathaveyou would like any of the files here to be removed, PLEASE email me and I will personally do so myself without haste. Thanks!
