With sneaky hits of strings in the back-half and a lurching sense of anticipation for its heavier moments right from the jump, Clare Morales’ new single is a tasty slice of indie-shoegaze that evokes a sun-streaked, yet dusty, twilight.
Built around a woozy little off-kilter guitar loop and a charming beat, songwriter Julian Cubillios pulls us into his hazy, sun-baked world of small anxieties. Fitting that it starts with a coughing “oh shit!” from what I have to assume is some pretty dank stuff. And that’s not the worst place for you to try to get your head for this bouncy late-summer tune.
Big-sky, open-hearted anthemic rock with touches of both Muse and The War on Drugs but entirely Krooked Tongue seem entirely concerned with keeping their heads down and just cranking out crunchy riffs and mile-high guitar solos. I took a spin through Krooked Tongue’s catalogue and they’ve been grinding since at least 2019 with really solid tunes. I hope that this great new track signals them coalescing around a full-length project as, based on the strength of this song, we’re in for a low-key visionary ride with a future album. Fingers crossed!
Organic, faintly nostalgic, fuzzy, ambient-tinged downtempo beats are the order of the day here. The percolating arpeggios pleasingly float above cloudy synth pads as vocal dreamy samples drift in and out of focus. And, in a year already stacked with great album covers, this one (awesomely titled summer somewhere) is a hypnotic standout. Whatever feeling you get from the image below is pretty much the exact feeling you should get from listening to this fuzzy little slice of beachy warmth.
