Rest of 2007: Aloha – "Light Works" EP


Courtesy of Shawn Brackbill

While the title is an apt one – on first listen, this set of shimmering guitar pop has all the musical weight of a summer breeze – Light Works finds Aloha evolving. The EP is the follow-up to the fantastic Some Echoes, one of my favorite albums of 2006, and finds the band moving ever closer to the sounds of modern-day Death Cab For Cutie. Pristine guitar architecture is the base for Tony Cavallario’s forthright melodies, though even at their poppiest, the songs are more claustrophobic than Death Cab’s most paranoid tracks. It’s the subtle nervousness inhabiting these songs that lets them transcend their otherwise unambitious pop aspirations, the same sense of urgency that made Nada Surf briefly relevant again on 2002’s Let Go. The band will play the Knitting Factory with the Velvet Teen on March 18.

Aloha – “Body Buzz”: mp3

(Light Works was released in December 2007 on Polyvinyl)

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2007: Still fresh! Click below for more of last year’s best music.