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You never want to spread your style thin by dabbling with too many different sounds, especially when you’re starting out. We’re not saying you should oversimplify things when those bits of inspiration hit. If you can successfully finesse ’em in there without derailing your stylistic strengths, then more power to you. But a little consistency early on can do wonders for an artist’s reliability down the road.
That said, we really love what we’ve been hearing from Austin’s Baby the Band. Not to be confused with fellow Texas musicians Baby…the band. Considering core member Norrie Swofford, a veteran of Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band who’s currently behind synth and keys for Dayglow, it makes sense that Baby the Band sort of sits in the middle; they scour off some of Dayglow’s pristine pop polish and reel in a bit of that absolute Nolan Potter madness. Baby the Band’s mellow wheelhouse of ethereal psych-pop-rock crafts with consistent timbres and mixing techniques, which made them a dream come true when they first appeared on streaming right after lockdown.
Far from a blemish on their legacy, Baby the Band gave us the new two-parter “Stain” / “Not Forever” just a couple weeks back. The former’s just as good as the latter, and the seamless flow between the two proves the pieces’ companionship. But we gotta give special credit to “Not Forever” for its execution of brevity without cutting the jam too short, wailing hard on a near-two-minute-long sax solo and never letting the energy drag. Either way, both’ll sound nifty if you’re trippin’! And both are aural euphoria at the press of “play”.
