Ears Wide Open: Miner

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Justin Miner credits his new musical direction to a “creative nervous breakdown.” Oh, if cracking up always yielded such fruits. Miner previously toiled in L.A.’s Fight From Above, a solid rock band that failed to distinguish itself among other outfits doing similarly straight-ahead bombast. He took a break from music, traveled, bought a tambourine, learned the banjo and, finally, arrived at his roots. Which lay, as it turns out, in roots music. Miner’s forthcoming “Hey Love” EP springs from the same joie de folk as the Mumfords and Edward Sharpes, the kind of revivalism that feels as comfortable as bare feet on a freshly mowed lawn. “Hey Love” has all the catchy trappings of an indie single, but the EP’s finisher “Golden Age,” a fully orchestrated anthem (complete with the sounds of nature in the background), is the strongest indication that Miner has indeed found something golden.

||| Download: “Hey Love”

||| Stream: “Golden Ocean”: