This L.A. based indie-rock outfit endeared themselves to me when they covered a deep-ish cut from the Talking Heads' catalog, nestling a nifty re-imagining of
"Warning Sign" deep into their considerably acclaimed debut
Gorilla Manor. The dust they effectively kicked up with that melody sweetened, rhythmically skittered, jangle-pop power-shake of an album turned a good number of heads and bent a lot of ears towards their intricate melding of space-rock and pastoral folk.
Hummingbird is where the
Local Natives stake their claim, finally blossoming out from the soil where everyone shoveled them in with comparisons to early Yeasayer, or Grizzly Bear, even some echoey mountaintop-meditations of highly harmonic and highly atmospheric Americana (like a Fleet Foxes, perhaps) or tying their playful grooming of slightly Afrobeat vibes to a Vampire Weekend vein. They showed all of those qualities on their debut, yes, and even proved their art-pop mettle by impressively re-spinning that Talking Heads tune. If
Manor was the restless and ruminative burst off the school bus on your last day of senior year in high school, kartwheeling into sunsets until you knocked the wind out of you... then
Hummingbird could be those late night drives you take, deep into your college years, (off "...to places we don't know...") we're you're soothed by the quiet beauty of nature or perhaps unsettled by the uncertainty of what the morning might bring...
Local Natives - 9/20 - at the Royal Oak Music Theatre -w/ Wild Nothing - for more info click here.
Listen: Local Natives Band site
