The Exbats - Song Machine - VINYL LP

In a just world, Song Machine, the fifth full-length album from The Exbats, which arrives via Goner Records, would become one of the most-loved and most-listened to albums of the 2020s. With the thirteen-track album, the Bisbee, Arizona-based band further their analog back-to-the-future combination of the Shangri-Las and pre-Velvet Underground doo-wop wannabe Lou Reed, churning out catchy tunes laden with buoyant choruses that rank alongside the best A-sides recorded in the shadow of the Brill Building or with the Wrecking Crew in tow. The Exbats are effortless time travelers-this time, they've set the dial for the early 1970s, incorporating the sonic magic of The Partridge Family, Muswell Hillbillies-era Kinks, and Brian Wilson into the crux of their musical ethos, evident on tracks like the propulsive InchRiding With PaulInch and InchThe Happy Castaway,Inch which bookend the album.InchWhat I remember about that era is going to record stores and seeing a wall of 45s that somebody was tasked with moving around [in concordance with] the Billboard charts,Inch says Kenny McLain, who, alongside daughter Inez, is the driving force behind The Exbats. InchWith our band we're kinda moving things around on that towering wall of singles, as if it were from some sort of ancient tomb, and we're trying to crack a code and make it to number one. So, I suppose, some magic door will open. And we'll all be free? Or something like that.InchInez McLain, namesake of the Monkees' wool-capped guitarist Mike Nesmith, has played drums and sung for The Exbats since she was just ten years old. Surveying the band's back catalog in relation to Song Machine, she adds, InchI always felt like our progression is similar to that of the Kinks-starting off garage and punk and then becoming more deliberate about everything.Inch On this latest , time stops altogether when Inez masterfully-and wholly uns