Video: Vanish Valley, ‘Creeping Heart’

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Vanish Valley’s roots-rock wears like denim — it’s sturdy, comfortable and never out of fashion, no matter how weathered it sometimes looks. On the L.A. quartet’s new album “Queen of the Concert” — their third and first since 2011 — singer-guitarist Andrew McAllister sounds at once restless and world-weary. “This record was written during a period of trying to lay down some sense of roots in Los Angeles” he says. “It’s a weird place to start to grow old in, fighting that nomadic feeling of wanting to take off. There’s an element of the record that’s about all the things we love and hate about living here.” McAllister, along with singer/multi-instrumentalists Guy Christiano and Alex Owen and drummer Daniel Goldblatt, laid down the new album with engineer Dave Bianco at Dave’s Room in North Hollywood. The roar of “Helicopters” is relatable to anybody who lives under Los Angeles’ uneasy skies; “Creeping Heart” (that’s Jeanne Syquia as The Gladiator in the self-directed video) drenches its frustration in organ; and throughout Christiano’s lap steel adds a bittersweet flavor. After hearing a woozy McAllister sing “charity’s growing weak,” on “Dinner Party,” though, you won’t know whether to buy his album or buy him a whiskey. Maybe both.

||| Download: “I Know I Know”

||| Live: Vanish Valley celebrates its album release with a show Saturday night at the Lexington in downtown L.A. The quartet also plays at the Armory Center for the Arts as part of Make Music Pasadena on June 6.


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