Long Live Logos

Sometimes you just need to see a little live music on a Friday night, and without much on the concert schedule this weekend (The Music of Led Zeppelin - A Rock Symphony! Smashmouth!) I found myself at Chyro Arts in Scottsdale to see San Diego's Long Live Logos. Turns out, they played a delighful set at the art space/dry concert venue for a chilled out crowd that made itself cozy on the room's couches while the band shared their brand of slick, mellow, piano-pop.

The four-piece might not have a lot of buzz right now, but I hear a lot of potential in their songs. "Let's Kiss Again" starts off with playfully off-kilter vocals and the "all bad things come to an end" refrain seems legitimately epic when it hits. Near the end they borrow a few lines of Burt Bacharach's "What The World Needs Now," which lends it a familiar, immediately endearing quality. "Give Us Hope," sounded particularly great live, as did the synthy "Little Monster and Me," the title track of the band's EP. "I Told You Not To Go There," sounds like a Grey's Anatormy soundtrack song -- I mean that as a compliment -- as Simple Minds-style keys introduce the piece, which broods as it builds to a triumphant chorus. The "dayooo, dayooo" at the close provides, perhaps, the first evidence that last year's much-hyped, Vampire Weekend-led Afro-pop trend had some lasting influence. - Phoenix New Times