Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Most Popular

Reader's Picks

Top Recommendations

A short list of San Francisco's most popular hot spots.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net & SF Weekly

National Features >

  • City Pages

    Michele Bachmann, Unmuzzled

    You don't need to read Sarah Palin's book to hear the ravings of a mad woman.

    By Matt Snyders

  • Miami New Times

    Pimp Daddy

    The rise and fall of a chubby sex-cult leader.

    By Natalie O'Neill

  • Riverfront Times

    Babe 'n' Arms

    Tom was a hot-tempered cross-dresser with a garage full of guns--and then he became Rachel.

    By Nicholas Phillips

  • Dallas Observer

    The Fight for Texas

    Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are locked in a battle over the soul of the GOP. They're also running for governor.

    By Sam Merten

The Dying Californian

Coarsegold (Turn Records)

Share

  • rss

Hiya Swanhuyser

Published on May 01, 2007 at 4:27pm

The Dying Californian's new record Coarsegold points to the early (read: good) years of R.E.M., but the local quintet sticks more in the Americana camp than those Southern boys. You can hear the Californian's customary Neil Young and classic rock influences, but the group widens its scope here, showing off a facility with pop, country, folk, and punk. The band also bests another R.E.M. staple: lead vocals that are simultaneously strange, scratchy, earnest, and damn pretty. The Dying Californian offers up the storied pipes of singer Nate Dalton, alongside harmonies from his brother Andrew and Aaron Schurk's backups. Other guest singers buoy the vocal layering, and the sturdy songwriting on Coarsegold peaks on tracks like "The Martyrdom of Perpetua" and "Blurred Just the Same" (one of which will make you cry, tough guy). Bassist Simon Fabela, guitar player Liam Nelson, and drummer Ricardo Reano aren't aiming to be Mills, Buck, and Berry, but this sophomore release shows they're nearly as good. — Hiya Swanhuyser