Highlighted: Avi Buffalo

--Hello everyone. This will be the reoccurring section of my blog where I intend to highlight interesting new bands and artists I think you should know about. Pretty self explanatory.

Here's a young upstart band from Long Beach, California called Avi Buffalo. Fairly standard back-story: musically inclined high school kid in California learns to play guitar, starts band with evident west coast sound. Band records a few songs, puts them on Myspace, gets picked up by west coast record label Sub-Pop.

Well, in my opinion, whoever signed Avi Buffalo to Sub-Pop deserves a gold star. Or a beer. Or something. These kids are young, and I mean young. By the time their self-titled debut album comes out this April 27, the band's singer, guitarist, and founding member Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg, also known as the Avi half of Avi Buffalo, will be a freshly-minted 21 years old.

And it shows. The music of Avi Buffalo is fresh, relieving. It's nothing brutal, but it is rock and roll. Check out this 7:28 (doesn't seem that long) track, "Remember Last Time," just released off their upcoming debut:

Avi Buffalo - Remember Last Time

The song has a few things I really love when it comes to this type of music: dual male/female vocals blending together nicely (keyboard player Rebecca Coleman also sings,) a tight and technical rhythm section, interesting chord progressions, the perfect amount of "jangly guitar" sound balanced with ample distortion at times. Sweet, but not entirely inoffensive. Singer/guitarist Avi sites avant-garde guitarist extraordinaire Nels Cline as his primary influence, which makes total sense when the song's climactic guitar solo starts to kick in.

I don't think I need to point out the obvious Built To Spill and Shins and Modest Mouse comparisons which have already been made, and will continue to be made once the debut comes out next month. Here's the first single from that album, "What's In It For."

Avi Buffalo - "What's In It For"

Again with the jangly guitars, interesting chord progressions/vocal harmonies. I don't seem to mind somewhat childish lyric, "What's in it for someone with nothing to do/ what's in it for me." In fact I rather like the youthful, inexperienced sentiment expressed therein.

As you can see, Avi Buffalo fit right in with the rest of the Sub-Pop catalog. A match made in heaven. And because these young up-and-comers seem so driven, I think we can expect a series of great Sup-Pop releases from them well into the future. I am very much looking forward to it. It all really begins for them April 27.

Another miscellaneous Avi Buffalo track:
Avi Buffalo - Where's Your Dirty Mind

Did I mention they are touring right now with Japandroids? Japs, incidentally, have an awesome new song called "Art Czars," which is paired with a cover of Big Black's "Racer X." I think Japandroids should make awesome role models for Avi Buffalo, and I am insanely upset that I won't make it to any of these shows.