Stream: Former Faces, ‘Open the Gates’

Kevin Bronson on November 5th, 2018

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Former Faces in August at Echo Park Rising

It was only this August that Former Faces released their debut album “Foreign Nature” — a slab of fever-dream psych-rock that oozed with optimism and atmosphere. The L.A. quartet (Ryan Parmenter, David Lee, Brian Blake and Abraham Kim) has wasted no time in turning the page. And, bent on exploring rather than replicating, they have turned the page.

“Open the Gates” is the first single from post-album sessions that frontman Parmenter calls “the most prolific writing streak we’ve had as a band.” The first of three five-song EPs the band plans to release over the next 15 months, the single (produced by Parmenter and Blake) arrives with a deep groove, ferocious guitar licks and a healthy, soulful sweat, having more in common with the psychedelic funk bands of decades ago than Former Faces’ indie-rock contemporaries. “I feel a vibration / rattling in my knees,” wails Parmenter, and it’s clear he’s dialed in to something different, more sanguine, than what inspired “Foreign Nature.”

“It’s a response to the seismic convulsions of the world,” he says simply, “as well as the more intimate, personal undulations within the band.”

||| Stream: “Open the Gates”