Sunset Hearts
Deco Tech
self-released

I ran into a local musician a few months back and got to talking about Sunset Hearts, how much I like their first album, last year’s Inside the Haunted Cloud. He agreed it was good, but said he wished the hooks were stronger. It almost seemed to him like singer/songwriter Casey McCurry was intentionally holding back the goods.

In retrospect, I can hear his point. Cloud is beguiling while you’re inside it, enveloped in layers of synth and guitar effects, but it doesn’t linger very long afterward, like the songs McCurry made with Satellite Lot do.

On the band’s new five-song EP, McCurry buries the booty even deeper. The sound is still a rich swirl of sonic colors, but there isn’t much to hold onto and nothing reaches out and grabs you. His sister Sadie, whose vocals elevated several cuts on Cloud, is practically absent on this EP.

“Horsie Forces” has a catchy beat, but the Hearts aren’t playing for the dance floor. McCurry’s more interested in the composition than the crowd. As such, “Fantasy Rejection” is impressive, as is “Too Wet to Pet” (killer guitar work here by new Heart Jason Ingalls), but as Goffin and King would ask, Will you still love these songs tomorrow?

The digital download of the album will include several remixes. The one that was done before we went to press, Glass Fingers’ take on “Horsie,” is fantastic — a deeply weird deconstruction that includes a 50 Cent sample. If the other remixes are this surprisingly good, Deco Tech will definitely be worth the megabytes.

— Chris Busby