Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever has just dropped their first full-length LP, Hope Downs, and they are already knee deep in the indie rock hype machine. The album is a welcome collection of guitar-forward gems rife for summer playlists, with single “Talking Straight” leading the pack.
The band has gained a lot of attention from this release, and with attention comes comparison. Hope Downs itself has been compared to everyone from The Cure to REM, but on “Talking Straight,” the band introduces Joy Division guitars and the vocals of Mick Jagger to the mix. The chorus and the solos are reminiscent of early Kings of Leon, and the band adopts their Youth and Young Manhood-era swagger and nonchalance effectively.
Somehow in spite of all these comparisons, “Talking Straight” sounds fresh and new. On the surface, the track seems like a simple song about girls and cars, but closer inspection of the lyrics finds singer/guitarist Joe White pondering “where the silence comes from, where space originates.” I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Caleb Followill contemplate such depths, and maybe that was never the point, but it’s nice to hear Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever attempt it.
SIMILAR SONGS
