Daiana Feuer on November 10th, 2016

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Fullerton band Channel formed about a year ago as an off-shoot of their previous incarnation, Thee Rain Cats. While maintaining their lineup, Caleb Palomo, Patrick Palomo, Wes Lopez, Miguel Gomez and Nelson Rodriguez felt pulled in a new musical direction, shedding their garage-rock sound for a more electronic post-punk orientation.

“We try to incorporate some darker elements of pop songs, both musically and lyrically,” Gomez explains. Recorded in their home studio, their debut album came out on Burger Records last month. Inspired by their favorite films and comics, Gomez says, “Our lyrics incorporate science fiction and the supernatural (like shadow people and aliens), while still maintaining some basic pop elements about love and trying to be a human.”

The first song on the album is “Luv Arcade.” It’s about a laundromat equipped with a few arcade games in the back, and a door where those in the know can solicit a prostitute. And, yes, this is a real place a friend of theirs told them about. “The song itself sounds kind of innocent and romantic, but it has this sort of seedy quality to it,” says Gomez. For the video, the guys went the low-budget route, using a phone app that transformed their living room into a “shitty version of Top of the Pops.”

||| Watch: “Luv Arcade”

||| Live: Channel performs Nov. 16 at Continental Room.