There are often times in life when we feel as though we need an escape. Things just aren’t going right, the present is heartbreaking, the future uncertain.  Friends, Marshall McLean (guitar, vocals, lap steel) and Adam Miller (guitar, vocals), were going through such a period, a time where everything felt broken. Miller’s marriage of five years had come to an end and McLean felt like he was on the wrong path and wasn’t sure where to go. They sought to make sense of the senseless through music, spawning the natural evolution that is their band the Horse Thieves. Working out their issues through each lyric and chord, the Horse Thieves dropped two albums on the exact same day; Outlaw Ballads, which is largely McLean’s story, and Valley of Decisions which is Miller’s and the concentration of this review. Joined by Tiffany Stephens (drums), Jordan Miller, and Fawn Dasovich (keys, vocals), The Horse Thieves are able to create a sad and beautiful album in Valley of Decisions. “Throw the Dice” is great as an intro, sounding a quiet awakening and setting up the listener for a moody and nostalgia evoking experience. The songs flow together, threaded with the common theme of reminiscing, which makes sense since Miller was looking to his past to make sense of the present. The songs are soft with heavy folk influences and a Mumford and Sons feel. “(I Was) Crazy (About You)” is practically a lullaby;  “You’re crazy but so am I. A Smile as bright as daylight shines but hold me tight and I’ll be blind”  is barely whispered, yet each note is drawn out fully against the haunting keys and simple yet effective drumming and guitar. In the lyric driven “I Won’t Keep You”, Fawn’s voice is clear and emotional as she purrs, “You said that it would be different now that I’m all you need but I guess I’m just an optimistic fool” . The album is certainly somber, maintaining a subdued sound throughout, and serves as the perfect soundtrack to the rainy day blues.

– Kristen Ferreira 

This summer is shaping up to be a busy one for dreamy psych-pop quartet Beat Connection – while the rest of us can look forward to enjoying the season’s sunny days and abbreviated nights, they’re set to release a debut LP and launch a North American tour. The group is hitting the road following the release of their Think/Feel single, featuring crystalline vocals provided by Seattle-based graphic designer Chelsey Scheffe. The single is the first suggestion of what’s to come on their upcoming summer release, a full-length effort entitled Palace Garden. With rippling, synthetic undercurrents and echoing, faded, and delayed vocals, the track recalls the overexposed, gauzy pastels of a summer photo album (you know, the Instagram kind). Deftly layered beats and harmonies create the auditory equivalent of a swinging hammock – comfortable, hypnotic, and inviting. "I feel too little and think too much", coos Scheffe, but it’s likely that the opiating, lullaby-like tune will leave listeners with the opposite problem.

– Kate Shepherd

Seattle-based songwriter Debbie Miller will debut her sophomore album, Measures and Waits, with a live performance at the Columbia City Theater on Sunday night. Once regarded as one of New York City’s best-kept musical secrets, Miller’s relocation to the coast came after the succesful release of her first album, Fake Love, back in 2010. Mixing a folky sensibility with disarmingly honest, and frequently clever, lyrics, Miller has gained followings that bookend the country with enthusiasts on both coasts. Measures and Waits, a six-song EP, is a return to form for the multi-talented songstress, who deftly shifts from strumming an acoustic guitar to navigating a piano’s keyboard. As always, Miller blends canny instrumentation and delicate, yet powerful, vocals. A siren chorus opens the album’s leading track, "Inch By Inch", and her piercing voice and rousing wordplay work to ensnare the listener within the first few bars. The rest of the album follows that example, with catchy choruses and even more infectious harmonies, ensuring that fans new and old won’t be disappointed at its release this Sunday. Opening acts will include folk rockers Haystack Charm, and Sean Neil.

Doors: 8:00 p.m.

Tickets: $6

– Kate Shepherd

Friday is upon us, and while many music lovers in Seattle will be packing venues to take in a handful of acts stopping by the city this weekend (Cults, Young the Giant and Sleigh Bells, to name a few), there’s plenty of local talent lined up over the next few days for those of you without big-name tickets. Tomorrow night, the Vera Project will play host to San Franciscan rockers, Ceremony, Olympia’s Milk Music, and the Seattle-based Society Nurse. The trio should provide a high-octane set tailored to the tastes of the city’s hardcore audience, for $11 a ticket ($10 with a club card). Doors will be at 7:30. At the Sunset Tavern, blues-rockers the Grizzled Mighty will take the stage with Strong Killings and Consignment on Saturday night. Presented by KEXP Audioasis, tickets for the show are $8, and doors will open at 10:00. Rounding out the weekend on Sunday night, the Comet Tavern presents folk bard Eric Miller, along with Shareef Ali and the Radical Folksonomy, Judd Wasserman, and Kate Graves. Cover for the show sits at $6.

 The University of Washington will be celebrating its campus radio station’s birthday starting next Tueday, with three days of live music at the school’s Ethnic Cultural Theater. The Rainy Dawg Birthday Festival was conceived as a way to bring big names into an intimate venue, for an experience that students and local music fans alike won’t soon forget. With headliners like Oneohtrix Point Never, the Thermals and Brother Ali topping the festival’s bill, some other local favourites rounding out the lineup, the mid-week event will provide a unique chance to catch some of the region’s hottest acts, up close and personal. Check out the full lineup here. 

What: The Rainy Dawg Birthday Festival

When: April 10th, 11th & 12th

Where: Ethnic Cultural Theater, University of Washington

Tickets: $10 for students; $14 for the public

– Kate Shepherd

Seattle-based songwriter Lindsay Fuller may make her home in the Northwest, but her musical roots are firmly planted in the South. On her third album, You, Anniversary, Fuller delivers more of the finely-crafted, soulful harmonies that bely her Alabama upbringing, and build upon her proven skills as a storyteller. Released today, the follow-up to 2010’s The Last Light I See, boasts collaborations with the Indigo Girls‘ Amy Ray, and an organicism that’s at least partially attributable to an adherence to acoustic instrumentation and live-off-the-floor recording. Fuller revisits the theme of mortality, particularly her own, throughout the album – and her signature vocal style, ever melancholic, lends itself well to the motif. Past Patti Smith comparisons gain credence, as her unwavering voice, coupled with an ability to poeticize the commonplace, ground an album that balances blues-based rhythms with a Gothic sensibility. Fuller took to the road, along with Ray, on March 18, and the pair will hit the stage in Seattle this Wednesday night at The Tractor Tavern. The evening will do double duty as an album release party, and Fuller’s latest offerings are sure to keep the sold-out venue rattling long into the night. 

– Kate Shepherd

Tomorrow night, the U-District’s Rat and Raven will play host to a deep roster of Northwest acts, featuring local pop-smiths the Balloons, fellow Seattleites the Hoot Hoots and the Fabulous Downey Brothers, and Portland’s Hollyood Tans. With reputations for fuelling fun-filled evenings with infectious and dance-inducing tunes, the four acts sharing the stage should offer a great opportunity to wrap up your week, and kick off your weekend, on a high note. 

Doors: 9:00 p.m.

Cover: $5

21 and over

Seattle-based outfit, Night Beats, will kick of the last leg of a North American tour – bookended by appearances in Austin – on March 14. The band’s first performance at this year’s SXSW will be a homecoming of sorts. Its two founding members, lead singer Danny Lee Blackwell and drummer James Traeger (from Dallas and Austin, respectively) will be returning to their home state for the event. The progressive R&B act, a trio since the addition of bassist Tarek Wegner, have been furnishing the Seattle scene with their perplexing brand of garage-soul since 2009. Their self-titled, full-length debut is characterized by undulating bass lines, underscored by scratching, squealing guitar and alternately trembling and deafening vocals. Released last June, the album features textured and psychedelically informed instrumentation, interspersed by Blackwell’s yelps and howls, and his single, twangy guitar is reminiscent of Trouble in Mind label-mate Ty Segall’s lo-fi surf rock. The result is a resurrection of the ghosts of psyche bands past that transcends the decades since the ‘60s as effectively as any other contemporary revivalists. Night Beats will wrap up a 40-date stretch at the Austin Psych Festival on April 27. 

– Kate Shepherd

The SXSW-bound Craft Spells will be partnering up with Brooklyn-based indie pop band, the Drums, for a spring tour. Shamelessly retro and unabashedly catchy, the Seattle-based band has produced a full-length album and two EPs of buoyant pop tunes as indebted to Morrissey’s melancholia as they are to the synth-happy songsmiths that they so resemble. Craft Spells pair lighthearted and nostalgic instrumentation with frontman Justin Vallesteros’ whispery utterances, and the combination makes for dreamy soundscapes reminiscent of Vallesteros’ native California. Their first full-length album, Idle Labor, captures the dichotomy in 11 tracks. “Party Talk“ walks the line between dreamy and visceral, with airy melodies and hauntingly morose vocals squaring off against toe-tapping synthetic beats and decidedly party-ready guitar lines. Originally a one-man project, the addition of Jack Doyle Smith, Peter Michel and Javier Suarez adds layers of pulsing rhythms and humming guitars. Stoked by effusive online coverage and approval, the band’s success has taken them overseas on international tours, moving from bedroom recording sessions to headlining slots in a matter just a few years.After six appearances at the Austin festival, the latest Deli Band of the Month will kick off a 19-date tour on April 21 that will take them across the U.S. and Canada. Craft Spells will wrap the tour at this year’s Sasquatch! Music Festival in George, WA.

– Kate Shepherd

After two EPs, both released in 2009, Seattle sextet Sweet Secrets saw their first full-length album hit the shelves of local record stores back in December. The 12-track deep Color Force is a collection of easy-to-digest indie pop tunes that often hint at an underlying, folky sensibility. Standout numbers include the understated, but stirring opener, “Air Travel”, and slow-burning foot-tapper “Pinhole Camera”, both of which have been getting spins on KEXP. The record is accessible, without being conventional – a testament to Sweet Secrets’ ability to craft songs that are at once appealing to the masses, while maintaining every bit of credibility they’ve accrued since their formation in 2008. Frontman Roger Lloyd’s voice anchors tracks like “Evidence of Good Times”, with Eleni Romano’s pristine backing vocals and Corrina MacFarlane’s subtle violin accenting a rich bed of instrumentation. The band markets themselves as the purveyors of music for smart, sexy individuals, and for the most part, this album delivers the goods. Sweet Secrets will be playing a benefit concert for Planned Parenthood at the Sunset Tavern this Sunday, along with former Deli band of the month, NoRey, and the Volcano Diary.

– Kate Shepherd

Seattle natives Us on Roofs, the Cat From Hue, and the Mission Orange will take the stage at The Crocodile on Feb. 29 for an all ages show. The evening should end the month on a high note, promising a danceable combination of shoegaze and psych rock to get fans young and not-quite-as-young moving to some yet to be released tunes. Hey, it’s not every year you get 366 days to party – why not spend the extra night taking in some local favorites?

Doors: 7:30 p.m.

Tickets: $5

All Ages; Bar with ID

– Kate Shepherd

On their upcoming 7” EP KILL KILL KILL, Vacant Fever offer up electro-psych tunes with as much thrust and raw energy as any dance floor- or house party-tested albums out there. Due for release on March 6, its throbbing bass and gritty, fuzz-heavy guitarplay offer the ideal backdrop for a symphony of breathy vocals and Bolan-esque sighs. Striking somewhere between Silversun Pickups and the Rapture’s dance punk, the duo of Daniel Michael Miller and Leon Spinx deal in simple but infectious melodies that sound at once firmly grounded in a postmodern reality, and like a transmission from another planet. Despite the buzzing modernity and detachment that some of the EP’s five tracks might suggest, their authors say “inside all of us, a fire still burns, and intimacy is incredibly alive” – reason enough to get to know Vacant Fever better.

– Kate Shepherd