Kevin Bronson on April 25th, 2012

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Times are changing for L.A. rockers Everest, and to them it might feel like “Rapture.” The quintet, which burst on the scene in 2008 with “Ghost Notes” on Neil Young’s Vapor Records and followed it up in ’10 with “On Approach” on Warner, has parted ways with the major label for its third album. “Ownerless” will arrive June 26 via ATO Records, and it expands the quintet’s sonic palette significantly. The band – Russell Pollard, Jason Soda, Joel Graves and Elijah Thomson, with drummer Davey Latter having departed – still flexes its muscles as purveyors of arching roots-rock, as the anthemic “Into the Grey” (previewed last year) attests. But Everest’s recording sessions with producers Richard Swift and Rob Schnapf (who helmed “On Approach”) also yielded material with harder edges, as well as songs propelled by free-spirited experimentation. The album’s lead-off track, “Rapture,” wastes no time cutting to the quick.

||| Download: “Rapture”

||| Live: Everest plays May 3 at the Troubadour.

Photo by Zoran Orlic