Seraphina Lotkhamnga on May 15th, 2013

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Sonny & the Sunsets‘ forthcoming record “Antenna to the Afterworld”  bounces back and forth between twee boy-girl verses reminiscent of Saturday Looks Good to Me and chugging rock chords echoing the Feelies, making it the most charming record yet from Sonny Smith and his San Francisco-based posse. Much of this charisma comes from the innocent off-kilter translation of Smiths’s stories. Whether he’s singing about falling in love with a cyborg (“Green Blood”) or working out one’s feelings over a friend’s death (“Palmreader”), after each song you always kind of want to hug him as if he were the weird kid on the playground. Listening to Smith sing about all these oddities is like hearing a child’s imagination running wild, and you can’t help but encourage it. “Antenna to the Afterworld” is slated for a June 11 release via Polyvinyl.

||| Stream: “Palmreader” and “Green Blood”

||| Live: Sonny & the Sunsets play Friday at the Satellite.

Photo by Chloe Aftel