Simian Ghost, "The Veil" (Playground Music)

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Deanna Mudry

If the Beach Boys were indie but in a good way

The Veil opens up with the sound of waves and a barbershop quartet harmony. It‰’s that dreamy sound of wholesome 60s boys with bowl cuts running on the beach that makes the album grab your attention, and continues to hold on to it through its 18 tracks. All of the harmonies, soft guitar, transition sound effects and imagery make The Veil at surface level a really sunshiney, fun, unique and quality positive force in music.

But then The Veil gets even better by taking that daze of youth and gorgeously self-reflecting on the problems that come with being young. While singing from a place of happiness and carefreeness, Simian Ghost is also super aware of how fleeting it is with lines like “Now everyday i look at the grown-ups playing/ It all looks so far away‰” and “There‰’s not even pain/ I just sit like an idiot waiting‰” from the stellar song, “August Sun,‰” a more bare, acoustic track that has small explosions of glittery harmony and then goes back to a kind of melancholy making it original and interesting. “They‰’re walking slowly through the sand/ They pass me laughing hand in hand‰” is another line from Simian Ghost that meets at the crossroads of content and jealousy, and brings the realness and the celestial together to make a dazzling, bittersweet indie-pop album.

RIYL: The Zombies, The Beach Boys, Ariel Pink

Recommended Tracks: 3, 4, 5, 11, 12