WE THE THEY-“The Shabby Road Sessions EP” (Free Album Download!)

Siluh Records offers an excellent EP for a great price (free), by retro native New Yorkers, We the They. Their calling it an EP, but at just three songs, it hardly lives up to the name “extended play.” Which is too bad, because I was really digging the Beach Boys/Doo Wop sound. The band does what (in my view) The Pipettes and The Kooks didn’t quite achieve: They make the retro sound modern and relevant. “Pastures” is pretty straightforward sunny bop, but “To The Mountains” is the priceless gem. Taking the surfbeat sound to a song about preferring
the rivers to the oceans, and living “like the Indians do,” it easily shuttles between pure fun and irony. The production, by Roger (Ben Kweller, Albert Hammond, Jr.) Greenawalt is top notch, and this is a record you want to hear. Trust me.