Ivan & Alyosha
The Sunday drive is almost extinct in a world of instant music and high gas prices. But in the elusive moment someone hops in a car with no agenda, a band would probably write songs about it and the result would sound like Seattle band Ivan & Alyosha’s second EP Fathers Be Kind.
In case you didn’t catch the band’s performance this week at the Hi-Dive on Denver’s eclectic South Broadway, Fathers is like a refreshing glass of sun tea with one part indie pop and a splash o’ by-the-river choral hymns. Perhaps Fathers begat its front-seat gospel from its creators Tim Wilson and Ryan Carbary, named after the two of the Brothers Karamazov from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s philosophical final novel. Perhaps it was inspired after a Sunday, Monday or even a Tuesday drive, after a year of almost 200 shows under their belts.
Even if you can’t make it out of bed on Sunday to start the coffee pot let alone a motor vehicle, a listen to Fathers will make up for it. The album shoots off with its title track, an exhilarating top-down joy ride through the country side. The ride continues with harmonic love tune “I Was Born to Love Her,” a song best blasted and sung along to with the windows down at the red light. The mood slows with the dreamy ballad “Everything is Burning,” a string-laden crooning that despite the title is as soft as a breeze through your fingers.
Snappy track “Living For Someone” is a toe-tapping hit disguised as a late-twenty-something’s conceptualization of the meaning of life—easily the best track on the album. The ride ends with “Glorify,” a stripped ballad of redeemed mistakes. Lead vocalist Wilson sounds like a happy marriage of Rufus Wainwright and Brian Molko, accompanied by a brood of practiced harmonies from the rest of the band.
That said, Fathers is a solid EP, a neat package of catchy tunes worthy of an anxious weight for the full-length album the group recently started working on this summer. This EP felt complete and didn’t leave me wanting more, but its production value and the band’s talent will keep them on the radar for what’s to come.
Score: B+
