Talk about a grower: On first listen, we were bored 3 seconds in to “Giant Stairs,” a song from A Weather’s new album, “Everday Balloons.” Ten seconds later, we were riveted.

There’s a slow-burning quality to the tune as it moves from a spare guitar intro to hushed harmony vocals from Aaron Gerber and drummer Sarah Handley Winchester, a powerful low swell of electric guitars rising beneath them as they sing a refrain that’s almost sure to get lodged in your head.

The Portland, Ore., band recorded “Everyday Balloons,” its second album (which is somehow affiliated both with Team Love and Bad Panda Records), with engineer Adam Selzer, who’s worked with M. Ward, the Decemberists and Norfolk & Western. The album came out yesterday, March 2.

LISTEN
Giant Stairs mp3
(At the request of Bad Panda, we note that this song is distributed under a Creative Commons license: CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0)

March 3, 2010 at 10:10 am | Share |