Familia - Golden Lies

Soulful and innovative, Familia’s debut album Golden Lies is worthy to stand amongst many of the excellent alt-rock releases of this decade. Golden Lies paces along with the urgency of Zeppelin-esque arena rock, yet manages to glide as glassily as something by My Brightest Diamond. Familia play a tight, slick groove, certainly exhibiting the closeness and chemistry of a musical family. It’s not difficult to draw comparisons to The Strokes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metric, Kings of Leon and Interpol, but Familia are pioneers of their own style. They drop seamlessly from straight rock pulses in “Oh Wretched Man” into catchy shuffles, and showcase nods to a multitude of styles throughout the album – take the jazz-infused “Today”, or the acoustic ode “Kinda Like A Mess”, for example.

Rhythm and blues run through this album’s veins, putting it in the good company of a multitude of rock greats. There are hard-rocking tracks too, like “Out Of My Head”. However, the best track on this album is probably “More”, which brings to mind the contagious stylistics of Tegan & Sara, bolstered by some highly creative percussion and evolving instrumentation from the band.



“Seventeen” contains one of the most uplifting choruses you’ll ever sing along to, but it’s afterwards that you realize the actual power of the anthem you’ve been compelled into chanting: it’s a captivating synocapted line that goes: “punishment brought our peace / by His wounds we are healed”. This is juxtaposed against the first telling lines, “she fell in love with a boy who was seventeen / she didn’t know what real love was / so he took her to places that she’d never been / well, he took her to places and now she has to pay”.

Familia pull no punches on this debut release; it’s fearless and incredibly solid all-around, no doubt making for fantastic tour material. Besides all the great work from each of the band’s instrumentalists, lead singer Tamara Umlah (the sister of drummer Cody Hiles) has a voice that would make many envious. Since, reportedly, the other band members decided to take a chance on her a few years ago when considering vocalists, they must count themselves fortunate now!

Kye Kye - Young Love

Hailing from Camas, WA, Kye Kye (formerly Paper Rings) recently accompanied Future of Forestry on their Advent Christmas tour. For the time being, Kye Kye are a group of siblings – and a fiancé. On tour, they released the preliminary copies of this album, entitled Young Love and produced by none other than Future of Forestry frontman Eric Owyoung.

Young Love is a fantastic album that reads a little like romantic poetry. Set to enchanting, flowing electro-indie-pop melodies, Young Love is a collection of intimate reflections on the band’s own relationships with God. This downtempo glitch-pop album is replete with interesting loops and rhythms, and beautiful, soaring harmonies. Lead singer Olga’s voice captivates, carrying real power on this recording. The instrumentation evokes serenity and optimism, seeking elevated perspective as described in “Rooftops”. In this album’s stillest moments, like the quiescent “Walking This”, the sound is like an aquatic current – deceptively quiet for the power that lies beneath in the emotions and expressions of the music and lyrics. At other times, like in “Knowing This” the instrumentation manages to conjure images of a lightshow with the song’s field of energetic synths and percussion.

Strict musical merits aside, Young Love is lyrically noteworthy too, due to their way of drawing Scripture into their lyrics with original and profound authenticity. Especially with Christian music, there is a pitfall to force or fake spirituality and profundity, which can come off as insincere, but Young Love leaves no such impression, its music and lyrics effortlessly flowing true to form. There are reasons aplenty to give Kye Kye a try.