La Sera – Hour Of The Dawn

LaSera_LP3Rating: ★★★½☆

It’s been a while since Katy Goodman stepped away from Vivian Girls and out on her own with La Sera. Her last full-length effort, See The Light, came out roughly two years ago and showed a lot of growth for the band and their sound. Now they’re back with album number three, which seems like an overall step in the edgier direction; the jangly pop is now straight rock and roll, harkening back to the original direction that La Sera began with.

“Losing To The Dark,” is the cold open for the album, with squalling feedback entering your ears first and foremost. This changes to some guttural sounding guitar and rapid percussion that gives the song a constant driving beat. Then Katy joins in with her sultry du-wop esque vocals and tops the song off. This track is a nice little introduction whose lingering guitars drive you to charge ahead into the album.What seems to be pretty commonplace now for Goodman and company is crafting catchy songs that adhere to the lo-fi and feminine vocal rock. “Fall in Place” is no exception to this, and the percussion on this song will have you tapping along to the beat and rocking out to the surfy guitars making their way through the percussion.

While song length isn’t necessarily an indication of merit, when you listen to the album, you can definitely get a taste of the different texture that the transitioning lengths of songs gives to the album. Whereas some albums of this genre come across as a little sloppy in that most of the songs are of equal length and get a little lost in the shuffle, La Sera have obviously put a little extra in time and effort into the timing of the album.

At the end of the album you feel fairly satisfied with the level of rock intricate guitar patterns that pervade most songs. While I have found some new catchy tunes to have a place in my listening rotation, it’s easy to get a little weighted down by them at instances in the album. The vocals and the guitars blend together in these instances to become a little too angular. However, this doesn’t completely weigh down Hour Of The Dawn, which has some great tracks to stumble upon.

More New La Sera Tunes

laseraWe’ve definitely got to get you into this new La Sera track.  Now that Vivian Girls are over, Katy can spend her time concentrating on her other project, and this song is an indicator that she’s definitely spent that time well.  This latest single from her forthcoming record has her sounding in complete control of her songwriting craft; there’s a soloing guitar, crashing cymbals, and, of course, her intoxicating vocal performance.  It’s just another reason that we’re expecting great things from Hour of the Dawn when it’s released by Hardly Art on May 13th.

[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/03-Running-Wild.mp3]

Download: La Sera – Running Wild [MP3]

 

La Sera Releases New Tunes

Upload_SxSWthoughts_2012_03_14-13_49_12After news of the finality of Vivian Girls, it would only make sense that Katy Goodman and her project, La Sera, would get more of a focus.  She leaked news via a Youtube clip earlier in the week, and now we get our first full listen to one of the tracks.  It’s definitely a more rock n’ roll approach, which fits with Goodman’s known adoration of classic West Coast punk like Black Flag and the Wipers. After hearing this track, we’re completely giddy in anticpation of her new record, Hour of the Dawn.  It’ll see a release of May 13th via the good folks at Hardly Art.

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