-valis Pick of the Week

Hail Voyagers! New week, new Pick: on this Pick I'll let the other blog savants debate the merits of this week's album. As for me, I rather enjoyed it. A lot.

San Francisco's Sleepy Sun, and their new release -Spine Hits, seems to be garnering reviews split down the midsection as regards its merits. (I couldn't help, as I read quite a few, wondering just how far in to the whole review was the author going to bring up the absence of Rachel Fannan. It's a fair enough point, to be sure, but seemingly colors the reviewers lens according to how strongly they gravitated to her contributions on prior albums. And so it goes. As did she....) For my ears Spine Hits satisfies from wire-to-wire. Lead singer Brett Constantino's voice fills the atmospherics perfectly while the band are more than up to the task of providing the "just-right" without stepping over the line into the "too-much." Seems to me it's pure focus. A tightening. (The band themselves provide a track-by-track explanation here.) You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Friday from 3 to 6am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.