Been groovin with some Southwest dessert sorta surf rock tunes from the Allah-Las as I work my way through the 2014 Lineup. These cats are pretty smooth, I’ll be hoping they grace one of my midnight walks through Centeroo for one of those great “close your eyes and ride the waves” ‘Roo kinda nights…
Pitchfork gave them a great write up
Garage rock also sounds solitary. If it is recorded correctly– which is to say, if it feels like the audio was captured haphazardly by an amateur engineer in 1966– this music will be alive and sloppy but also a little removed, particularly the vocals. You know a garage-rock band has done its homework if the lead singer can affect a Jagger-esque whine that comes off somewhat anesthetized, like he can’t quite bring himself to commit fully to the song or life in general.
You can’t accuse Los Angeles quartet Allah-Las of not doing its homework. Three of the four members met while working at one of the country’s great record stores, Amoeba on Sunset Boulevard, where they spent countless hours studying up on the vintage sounds that compose their affectingly melancholy self-titled debut.