violens: totally true

True, the forthcoming sophomore album from Brooklyn three-piece Violens, further amplifies the band’s innovative songwriting with a palette of exquisitely crafted sound. The group eludes classification, blending percussive guitar work and silky harmonies, seeking the silver lining yet to be discovered between the sounds we know and love. With a wash of ’90s sonic pop via artists like Pale Saints, Cocteau Twins and McCarthy, Violens paints soft watercolor notes across their compositions, adding crucial emotional depth with layered vocal harmonies. The album’s first single, “Totally True” demonstrates this with its stonewashed, semi-improvised feel, celebrating bands like The Chameleons and Martin Newell’s Cleaners From Venus. The guitars are clean and jangling, meshing perfectly with the driving baseline. The lovely vocals have an almost ’60s feel; their debt to such soft-rock touchstones as The Association and Sagittarius is one of the unique elements of the group’s sound that sets them well apart from their contemporaries. The B-side “Something Falling” is a dreamy ballad marked by an effectively spare production, sweeping synths and the band’s trademark harmonies. Simply gorgeous.