Not entirely too surprising, but I guess I have a love affair with San Francisco bands as of late. Sonny and the Sunsets are the latest Golden Gate group to mesmerize me with their music, creating some great beach tunes that aren’t drenched in fuzz and reverb like those newfangled “glo-fi”ers. More Kumbaya around the fire pit than sandy acid-trip, Sonny Smith effortlessly weaves together dual vocal harmonies with easy-going guitar like he’s been doing it all his life (which a look at his discography shows that he pretty much has).

Other than a from-what-I-heard stellar 7” released on Soft Abuse Records — one that is unfortunately sold-out — his LP entitled Tomorrow Is Alright is his first compete effort with his backing band The Sunsets. Reading as a sort-of “who’s who” of the up-and-coming San Fran scene, The Sunsets are composed of members from The Fresh & Onlys, The Dry Spells, and PT Music favorites The Sandwitches. No doubt the inclusion of equally strong musicians have only helped Smith, as Tomorrow is arguably his best work to date. Even after only a cursory listen to the opening track “Too Young to Burn”, it’s enough to warrant scouting out the LP in your local record store, hoping to find one of the 500 copies that were printed.

When listening to “To Young to Burn” you can’t help but realize the communal effort it took to produce the record. Everything from the background “Oooohs and Aaaaahs” to the handclap percussion reeks of collaborative creativity that only a round table discussion of “wouldn’t it be cool if we did this…” could produce. Also, I can imagine when performing live that this collective nature of Smith’s music is sure to yield wonderful audience participation — encouraging sing alongs and claps to the beat like no other band. He’s coming to Portland the 23rd of January, so I’ll be sure to check it out and report back!

But until then, here is an mp3 of “Too Young to Burn” as well as a live video of another one of Sonny and the Sunset’s songs “Stranded”.

Sonny and the Sunset // Too Young to Burn