Our regular look at artists worth paying attention to now.
Three acts with new music, growing momentum and a reason to get on your radar before everybody else catches up.
– WORDS BY JAMBALOO EDITORIAL TEAM
DIARY
Diary make guitar music that feels familiar right up until it doesn’t. The New York five-piece pull from jangle-pop, shoegaze, psychedelia and the dance-informed end of ’90s indie, but their debut album Spiral Bound is less interested in recreating any one of those periods than finding the places where they can all collide.
Released September 4 through Kanine Records, Spiral Bound was co-produced with Bodega’s Ben Hozie and arrives after several years of EPs and singles. “Keep Comin’ Up” pushes the band toward Madchester-sized grooves and walls of guitar, while “Drive It” takes a darker route, built around a motorik rhythm and the strange, suspended feeling of being on the road before dawn.
The album moves easily between those ideas without sounding like a band trying to show off its record collection. There are big melodies underneath the haze, but Diary leave enough oddness around the edges to keep things from becoming too comfortable. After years spent developing around New York, Spiral Bound finally gives them something that feels definitive. Their record-release show happens September 12 at Union Pool.
Deux Visages
Photo by Jimmy Fontaine
Deux Visages have already packed a surprising amount into the period before their first album. Formed while still in high school, the trio were signed to Atlantic early, moved from Miami to Philadelphia and have since opened for Mannequin Pussy, julie and Wunderhorse. Now they have a new label and, finally, a debut record on the way.
Daphney Hanono, Jack Chiu and Tony Jouvin signed with Pure Noise Records in June and introduced the next phase with “Always You,” a sprawling dream-rock song about longing, uncertainty and watching childhood disappear. It is also the first preview of their debut album, currently due this fall.
There is something useful about Deux Visages arriving at an album only after spending years becoming a live band first. Earlier material had plenty of immediacy, but “Always You” feels more patient, allowing atmosphere and Hanono’s vocal to take up considerably more space. With the touring résumé already established and a full-length finally about to put everything in one place, Deux Visages seem positioned for the kind of jump that can happen very quickly once the right record arrives.
GIRL TONES
Girl Tones have a setup simple enough to explain in a sentence: sisters Kenzie and Laila, guitar and drums, making rock music in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The harder part is explaining how two people keep making it sound quite this big.
Their debut album Precious arrives November 6 through Parallel Vision and Big Loud Rock, with Cage The Elephant guitarist Brad Shultz producing. New single “Pretty Face” gives the clearest indication yet of where it is heading, starting with clipped, palm-muted guitar before opening into something much heavier while taking aim at the ways people reshape themselves simply to be accepted.
Girl Tones have spent the last couple of years building well beyond their Kentucky beginnings, releasing a steady run of singles and sharing stages with Cage The Elephant, Silversun Pickups and The Velveteers along the way. What makes them worth watching now is that the increased attention has not made the music noticeably more complicated. The basic idea remains guitar, drums and songs strong enough to make the empty space irrelevant. Precious will be the first chance to see whether they can sustain that across an entire record.
