Wilderado

One Liner: Genuinely great rock and roll AND a cool name.  

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia page, we'll go with rock, alternative rock, and indie rock.
Home:  L.A.

Poster Position: 20
Day: Sunday at 11:30
Weekend One Only.  (noooooooooo!!!)

Thoughts: This one takes the early crown for the best new discovery because of ACL for the year.  These dudes are making some truly kick ass rock and roll.  The funny thing is that they remind me of Rainbow Kitten Surprise, who in turn reminded me of Kings of Leon, so they're in that same lineage of bands making that style of harmonic rock.  Maybe add Dr. Dog into that group of similar sounds as well.  And a little Chris Martin/Coldplay in there at times as well.  Their most recent single is so good - I got goosebumps when it came back up in the Spotify list today.

Pretty basic tune, but that soaring, plaintive chorus hits me right in the chest.  Big fan of that tune.  Literal goosebumps.  But you can tell that this song is a recent release, because it only has 30k streams.  I expect that to climb...

No actual album for the band, only a few EPs (Misty Shrub, Singles, and Latigo - all from 2017) and then two new singles from 2018 (that one above and "Sorrow," which is also good).  I don't notice a lot of variance in the three EPs, doesn't seem like they evolved much in between them, or changed up their style, so I'm not sure whey they released them separately instead of in one album.

The band used to be called Bird Dog (they vastly improved the coolness of the band with the name change, IMO), and is made up of two dudes from OK and two dudes from TX.  I had it in my head that they were an Austin band, but I can't locate any evidence for that online, it looks like they just hail from L.A.

The most streamed song, by a good-sized margin, is "Morning Light" from the Latigo EP.  With 4.4 million streams, its not huge, but for this style of music (which is unpopular in the streaming age of kids listening to Lil' Turd all day long), that is pretty solid.

That is where you can clearly hear my comparisons to RKS and KOL, both in the tune and especially in the vocals.  Another one is "Already Loved," where the group singing very much reminds me of RKS.  That song also has the vocals, when the whole group isn't singing, that sound like Chris Martin.  You can also get some pretty chilled tunes from these dudes, like "Rubble to Rubble," a strummy little sing-along.

I'm digging what these guys are putting down.  I'd definitely go see them play if I make it to Weekend One.