La Sera, Sees The Light, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review

I was going to do a review of The Shins' Port of Morrow this week.  But then, I figured, there have been plenty of reviews of that record already.  They're all on the money:  the album's great; James Mercer is one of the best pop songwriters alive today; Mercer is The Shins are Mercer, etc.

While I won't do a review of that album here, I did want to acknowledge it this week.  James Mercer is really a mindie godfather.  I'm sure there are those who would argue, but I feel like the entire mindie genre was born the moment Natalie Portman put on those great, big headphones and smiled as she heard "New Slang" for the first time.  Even though Port of Morrow represents the first new Shins material in five years, Mercer's fingerprints are all over today's mindie pop.

With that as the back drop, I went for a run today with New Jersey's "Kickball" Katy Goodman and La Sera.  Sees The Light clocks in perfectly at just over thirty minutes, so there was no wandering the neighborhood this time as I listened to the last few songs.

La Sera is Goodman's side project from her regular band, Vivian Girls.  Where that band is all lo-fi, punk fuzz, La Sera is more polished.  Goodman plays bass in Vivian Girls.  Here, her collaborators Rob Barbato and Dan Allaire handle most of the instrumental duties.  The band's musical chops, combined with Goodman's vocal delivery, make La Sera a very different-sounding project from her day job.

The sound of the record comes closest to 50's/60's girl groups, but the jangly, arpeggiated chords on some of the tracks, like "I'm Alone," have a more 80's feel.  There's also a David Lynchian, B-movie darkness to the sound.  And, yes, I hear some Shins influence in the approach to mid-twentieth century atmosphere that permeates Sees The Light.

There really aren't any outright misses over the course of the short running time of Sees The Light.  Other album standouts include "Please Be My Third Eye," "Break My Heart," and "Drive On."

I mentioned to CoolMom while we listened to Sees The Light last night that, to the extent that there's a Jersey "scene" that's grown up around Titus Andronicus, Real Estate, Ducktails, Vivian Girls, and La Sera, the hallmark of it seems to be an updating of the sounds of rock's past.  Sees The Light plays with a lot of well-worn sounds and subjects, but it does a nice job with them and never strays into pure nostalgia.

Listen to "Break My Heart" here.