If you became a fan of Los Angeles-based band Local Natives when the group released its most recent album, last year’s Sunlit Youth, but were unaware of its previous work and want to check it out, you definitely should. But for an untainted listening experience, do not read any of the old reviews first. It might be confusing.
Local Natives started building a fanbase immediately upon the release of their debut, Gorilla Manor (which came out in the U.K. in 2009 and in the States on Frenchkiss Records in 2010), and critics were also, for the most part, smitten. Just scanning a few of the reviews for Manor, you’ll notice that progressive, artsy Indie Rock/Indie Folk acts like Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes are referenced often, due to Local Natives’ similar use of unique song structures and spine-tingling, quasi-psychedelic harmonies (and likely because all three acts released buzzed-about albums in roughly the same time period). The follow-up, 2013’s more melancholy Hummingbird, was also fairly well received by critics (resulting in many more of the same comparisons), but more fans stepped up to embrace it, evidence of the debut’s “grower” appeal. It debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard album charts.
The hues and textures on Local Natives’ first two albums are distinct, but on Sunlit Youth, the band both reinvented itself and retained much of its essence. And they figured out how to avoid Fleet Foxes comparisons — just add synths. Sunlit Youth is more directly poppy than the group’s other albums, but the electronic elements and the strident melodies don’t feel forced, as if Local Natives signed a billion dollar deal with a major label that locked them in a studio and didn’t let them out until there was a “hit.” In fact, it’s almost as if the band members simply switched up their toolkit — the songs are still creatively constructed, the harmonies are largely still intact (though there are more solo melodic “leads” by the band’s three singers on this one) and there is still a rich and enigmatic depth to Local Natives’ sonic exploits. They’re just a little less oblique this time around.
“I think on (Sunlit Youth), we were looking to a lot more Hip Hop and Electronic music, and it just came out this way,” Local Natives multi-instrumentalist and primary vocalist Kelcey Ayer recently told Cleveland Scene about the album’s unexpected new direction. “We were just more excited about diving into that world — the electronic side of music is definitely a complex and dense world to dive into. We’re just constantly trying to figure out what is exciting to us.”
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This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 5, 2017.