Years Around the Sun

On their debut album, "Introstay" San Diego 's very own Years Around The Sun bring the soft-hypnotic dreaminess in spades. I love the way that this disc comes at your head. The bass and guitar playing of Dylan Raasch and Ronnie Dudek (respectively) have that doubled, Octaver sound that goes straight to the brain's pleasure center and starts to hum. At times they veer into wonderful Sea and Cake tonal zones mixed with a healthy dash of Yo La Tengo structures and passages. This isn't to call Years Around The Sun's music derivative at all. There's a sure handed creativity at work here and an audible lack of pretension. The whole disc hangs together with a unified sonic purpose and intent as a statement of who this band is.

It's a hard trick indeed to push this type of buried intensity while remaining so relaxed sounding. The pleasant surprise is the depth of emotion conveyed without histrionics or abrasive noise. Many years ago there was a band from San Diego called Jambay who had this quality as well. The somewhat jazzy chords and phrasing housed in bed of heady jam music is what's similar. I'd like to see this band blowing at some all night desert gig while the cold, clear air was punctured by the ruby rays of the rising sun. The psychedelic warmth and surreal float of tone they deal in is a refreshing, palette cleansing listen. Super standout cuts include, "Align", "Soft Soul" and "Dead Man's Sea". Support these locals while you can San Diego . As good as they are they won't be ours alone for much longer.
- BlogSanDiego.com

I was surprised recently with an email from the marketing coordinator of an artist management company that represents a band called Years Around The Sun with an attached MP3 file from the band as well as an offer to send me their debut CD Introstay. The moment I heard it, I decided that this was my kind of music. Catchy melody and toe-tapping rhythm. While it's possible the lyrics may be profound (as I've mentioned before, I am not really a "lyrics man"), I couldn't tell. I listen to music for entertainment and not some intellectual stimulation. This was a song with lush and layered sounds surrounding a nice hook. As I said, my kind of music.

I would like to assure blog readers that I am NOT paid for the review. They sent me the song, I liked it and decided it is worth sharing with all of you. I don't know if any of you know me well enough to trust that I won't feature anything I am sent by any band or company that I don't genuinely like myself. But, given my eclectic taste in music, the featured music here will span many genres.

The first song is a single Heart Delay which, as I said, will get your toe tapping. This is the first song I heard from this group. The second song linked below is a selection from their debut CD called Sinclair. I had a hard time picking a song off their Introstay CD to feature here. I didn't like the opening track (Align), but found Dead Man's Sea to be very catchy. But then, when I put my headphones on, I seemed to prefer Dry Lake Bed. Probably the easiest to like on the first listen is Sinclair. Sounds like a single should sound. Soft Soul has a funky groove to it that would work great in the evening with a glass of wine in your hand. Both Northfork and Warm Jets are great songs. For some reason Warm Jets sounds a little Beatlesque to me. The sound on most of the songs is quite similar with jangly guitars and synths leading to a nice melody and a steady beat. Overall, the vocals are somehow reminiscent of a British group, but their site seems to suggest they're all Americans. Let me know if you get the same sense of a "British accent" when you hear these songs. In fact, all these songs remind me a lot of Evermore who I featured recently on this blog. Maybe it's my imagination.

You can find the band web site here (including tour info). And their CD cover looks suspiciously like the Jantar Mantar ancient astronomical lab I used to pass by frequently when I lived in New Delhi! Like many independent bands today, you can hook up with their MySpace page. Of course, I urge those of you who like these songs to buy their CD here. After having heard the songs, how wrong can you go for ten bucks?

1. Years Around The Sun - Heart Delay (5.58 MB; 128 kbps MP3)
2. Years Around The Sun - Sinclair (3.31 MB; 128kbps MP3)

Posted by Rajiv at 7:00 AM

Labels: Catchy, melodic, pop, rock, Years Around The Sun
- Unheard Music

Sometimes I think I just have too much music history behind me. I make comparisions that are accurate for me (and I do sometimes get confirmation from Big Dave of what I am hearing) but often the artists haven’t heard the bands I compare them to.

Have you heard The Go-Betweens on the “Before Hollywood” album? The track “Cattle and Cain” was astonishing and even NME agreed with me on that point. This release (EP or LP) by Years Around The Sun is like a band who seem to have taken that track as their starting point and swathed all their songs in that immaculate evocation of space and stasis. Every single guitar note is one that The Go-Betweens would have wanted to have played. The melodies are Pop but not the vacuous sort. They intrigue and draw me into their musical world.

This is a sort of magic. Not only do I get a reprise of the spirit of Grant McLennan but on Dead Man’s Sea I can hear Nico’s voice singing. I know that this is not a review but just a personal statement. I can’t tell you that “Introstay” will be a great record for you. But if you don’t get your emotional heart torn out and thrown around by Years Around The Sun then you are beyond redemption as far as I can see.





- Cool Noise

Influences loom large on this debut LP from San Diego’s Years Around
the Sun. While the vocal styling of Dylan Raasch and Ronnie Dudek
cannot help but be compared to those from the likes of Pinback and
Interpol, this is most certainly a case of flattery as opposed to
imitation.



Pinback, Three Mile Pilot and the Shins like sounds heavily influence
the instrumentation of this record, yet after a few minutes the
amalgamation takes on a life of it’s own. If not entirely original,
the synthesis of influences is immediately familiar and comforting.
The musicianship on this album is superb and the dueling melodies by
guitar and bass play off one another allowing Stefanko’s piano to hold
the basis of many songs on the cd. Moore’s drums are solid, intricate
and immediately danceable.

The intertwining vocal melodies and harmonies are executed in a very
Rob Crowe-esque, fashion yet the timbre of each voice brings something
new to the table. It’s as if you’re listening to collaboration between
Pinback and Interpol, which certainly is not at all unwelcome.

The band really comes into it’s own and I think does it’s best work
when working with synths. Songs such as Soft Light Serenade retain the
band’s core influence yet branch out into something uniquely YATS.
This record culminates in the six-minute tome Heart Delay combining
everything interesting on this cd into one instantly catchy song.

This is a fantastic effort by a band that has really captured their
influences and focused them through their own lens to create an
extremely enjoyable hour of music. I’d like to see some artistic
expansion, but I have a feeling they’re well on their way.

-James Griffin
- sandiegopunk.com

I know that I am not the only one to have known of an individual who was labeled as “the guitar guy” all throughout high school. You know, that dude who wandered around parties with an acoustic guitar by his side, playing covers of songs so abysmally that most of the partygoers would feel too bad to tell him to stop or leave. He would even carry it around school all day, refusing to leave it in a secured room like the rest of the players until the ensemble class at the end of the day. I never could quite gauge the actual intentions of “the guitar guy”, whether it be an attempt to socialize or simply get comfortable, but I occasionally wondered how many of these kids actually ended up with a solidified career in the music industry. I would have easily guessed below 1% if I were judging strictly from my early experiences, but I have also encountered a few people at parties in my last year of high school who played their instruments openly and actually had, well, talent. It had nothing to do with the image and was entirely about the music, which I believe also had to be the case for the two founding members of Years Around The Sun.

It all began when Dylan Raasch, a bassist with intentions of starting up a band, attended a party in 2004. At one point, he began to hear the faint sounds of an acoustic guitar strumming a track by the Shins. Out of curiosity, he followed the resonance and found Ronnie Dudek playing casually in another room. Immediately impressed, the two began to talk about their musical interests and artistic intentions, struck by the instantaneous similarities. Both were looking to move on from past projects, hoping to mold a sound that was more reminiscent of locally influential San Diego bands in the process. At party’s end, they exchanged a demo CD and phone numbers, turning a meeting that occurred merely by chance into something that could mold their indefinite futures. Drummer Chris Cote quickly joined the duo and the group wrote and recorded Introstay, their debut EP, in late 2004. During the recording phase of the EP, classically trained pianist Mia Stefanko also joined the group. The group then continued to tour throughout California, writing a batch of new material in the process. The material has progressed to become Inva De Siva, Years Around The Sun’s first full-length album. Though Coste left the group to pursue other career goals in the midst of the album’s writing process, local San Diego drummer Evan Caleb Yearsly joined and quickly supplemented the group’s percussive vacancy.



I found it interesting to see that Years Around The Sun has actively toured with Pinback, a band who has clearly had a distinctive influence on the budding four-piece. Though the instrumentation and tempo is generally not placid enough to be wholly reminiscent of Pinback, dual vocalists Raasch and Dudek find a similar landing point in their delivery of fluid indie-rock that is adeptly led by a variety of overlapping guitar and keyboard progressions. Their vocal tone remains constantly aggressive in the same vein as Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, and the fast-paced guitars usually create additional instrumental comparisons in that regard. “Failing At Art”, a track that appears likely to be one of the first singles off the recently released Inva De Siva, takes this concisely effective approach and turns it into an effort that finds Years Around The Sun at their most accessible. The guitars and rhythm section work together frantically, tying in with ardent vocals to create an infectious fusion of indie-rock and punk that groups like Modest Mouse have popularized with massive success. The chorus of “Failing At Art” is introduced immediately and, though it does not provide much differentiation from the similarly executed verse, the transitional tendencies of every instrument involved makes each go-around that much more rewarding. “Set your eyes or it will haunt you,” the soaring vocals warn, high-pitched but hardly to an annoying extent. With its accessibility leading the cause, “Failing At Art” seems like the group’s best bet of receiving substantial radio play outside of San Diego.

“Roundabout” finds the group at their current peak of ambition, containing a similar degree of catchiness found in tracks like “Failing At Art” while simultaneously managing to incorporate more diverse song structures and instrumental alternations. Also, when compared to the guitar-led “Failing At Art”, it is more demonstrative of Stefanko’s vital collaborations as a keyboardist. She provides the song’s melodic backbone with the increasingly subtle repetition of a lushly incorporated keyboard, enhanced appropriately with touches of reverb that sustains the twinkling content. Guitars and keys remain in a steady mixture for the duration of the track, but the most particularly engaging moments occur when the keys are tied into the rhythm section exclusively, providing a sense of intimacy that a handful of moments on Inva De Sa - Obscure Sound

Blending the noir atmosphere and lush melodicism of 1980s new romantic with a touch of alt-rock edginess, San Diego's Years Around the Sun has produced a second album that is polished, confident and full of great pop songs.

Thickly arranged with a nice, fat sound to the mix, "Inva de Siva" has the kind of plush-pile wall of sound that is pure luxury on the ears. Intricate instrumental passages are brought prominently to the front, with echoed vocal harmonies providing aural depth.

All of that shows merely that the CD producer and mixing engineer know their stuff.

What makes the album as good as it is are the songs written by bassist Dylan Raasch and guitarist Ronnie Dudek, who also share the lead singing. Moody and quirky in arrangement, the songs are so gorgeously melodic that they'd probably be too sweet were it not for the off-centered playing.

As it is, the combination of accessible melodies and challenging arrangements makes for an album as interesting as it is easy on the ears.
- North County Times