Description

Nine months after the release of Shy Pursuit, The Spinto Band swiftly returns with a new full-length record, Cool Cocoon. Recorded again at their Delaware studio and released on Spintonic Recordings, the album represents a remarkable change of pace. There is more collaboration between songwriters, more spontaneity in the recording process and a distinctively focused sonic direction. Combined, these elements have formed their most cohesive album to date.

Like the caterpillar and the moth, the recordings on Cool Cocoon have elements which are related yet disparate. The tight pop arrangements of Amy + Jen are in stark contrast with the airy abstractions of Static, which are both juxtaposed against the vastly stripped down Look Away. These songs are wholly different beings who all share the same DNA.

The record often combines their pristine studio production with more of the carefree experimentation from the bands early basement recording days. As heard on the debut single Shake It Off, the song quickly falls from buoyant piano pop into a murky sea of cassette tape warble. Many of the songs rely on this balance of order and entropy, both sonically and spiritually.

All in all, its something youd expect from the Spinto Band: familiar, but also like nothing youve ever heard before. There is a keen awareness of their past connected with a look towards the future. To hear such contrast within a modern pop record is refreshing, and it is even more rewarding when these variations and oppositions work sympathetically with one another. With Cool Cocoon, youre hearing a time-relapse of The Spinto Bands metamorphosis.

The Spinto Band can sound like Paul McCartney disciple Emitt Rhodes one second, pop-polymath newcomers Foxygen the next. Their perpetual underdog, self-releasing ways bring to mind lo-fi godhead R. Stevie Moore, fictional pop self-mythologizer Nik Worth from Dana Spiottas great 2011 novel Stone Arabia, or any number of overlooked indie rock lifers in mid-size cities nationwide. Theyve firmly established their canon over the past two decades, and theyre edging ever closer to deserving a place within it

With its color wheel-spinning palette, sticky, curlicued melodies, and poignant lyrical reflections, Cool Cocoon is an occasionally breathtaking highwire walk between craft and genuine feeling that builds confidently on its predecessor. PITCHFORK 7.6