Kevin Bronson on June 18th, 2020

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Les Biches mark the new adventures of four players whose stamps on the Los Angeles rock scene date back two decades or longer. Their forthcoming album “Gentlemen Sailing Into Darkness,” an ephemeral, genre-fluid affair, is evidence of music’s mystical pull, beckoning its disciples to open new doors.

“It’s exceedingly easy to find things to distract us from the cruel practical joke of the ticking clock,” says singer-songwriter-guitarist Keith Joyner, who started Les Biches in 2017 as a solo project. “I never had religion to mitigate that fear, so the only place I know to channel it is through music.”

Named for a Jaques Brel song (and a 1968 French film), Les Biches are now comprised of Joyner and bassist Chris Candelaria, who spent more than a decade — four albums in musicians’ time — at the core of L.A.’s Twinstar. They are joined by guitarist Dusty Starr and drummer Kevin Pinnt, and together the foursome’s resumés include such bands as Revolux, Chihuahua, The The, Caterwaul and Seven Simons.

The album, coming out July 17, is the follow-up to the singles collection “No One Loves You Like the Last One to Love You,” which culled the early Les Biches songs that Joyner made with a rotating lineup.

Today, Les Biches unveil the album’s first single “Lost Again” (officially out on Friday), along with its Sean Fawcett-directed video. The song is an excursion into classic rock-era psychedelia, part of an album that touches on heavier alternative rock, dream- and jangle-pop and even synth-rock, all cast against a wistful backdrop. “Lost Again” carves a determined countenance from the stone edifice of world-weariness. “I won’t pretend discarded dreams will cease to be,” sings Joyner, sounding like a man who might have a pile of them. Their weight gives “Gentlemen” formidable heft as Les Biches sets sail, because there will always be horizons.

||| Watch: The video for “Lost Again”