The eponymous debut by The Furious Seasons, masterminded by the brothers Steinhart, lifelong Los Angeles-based music mavens with two decades` worth of indie pop tenure (Pop Art, Smart Brown Handbag), showcases quietly beautiful, super-literate songs of longing and despair, hope and transcendence. A collection of tunes with nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and everything to say, The Furious Seasons gets inside your skin, your head, your heart -and rummages around, affecting you in emotional areas you`ve maybe shunted aside since the last time you heard your favorite tracks by the likes of The Frames, The Go-Betweens, The Kings of Convenience, Sun Kil Moon, Wilco or The Innocence Mission. It`s a record so replete with memorable melodies, and, ultimately, insidiously haunting sentiments, that you`ve simply got to submit to its carefree sincerity, its earnest craft masquerading as nonchalance. After having made 17 albums, toured the U.S. and U.K. for yonks, played innumerable L.A. gigs, and received countless glowing record reviews from everyone from Rolling Stone to the latest online zine or bedsit tissue, principal songwriter David Steinhart reinvents himself here -as a composer, a singer of remarkable understatements boldly couched, and a master of simple, pristine studio arrangements of the classic guitar/bass/drums/voice paradigm. As Performing Songwriter has recently observed, Steinhart "pushes the boundaries even as it sounds vaguely familiar. They`re the Beatles` sarcastic older brother, they`re The Smiths on a happier day." Furthermore, as Magnet has noted, "This is the freshest exercise in pure pop..." Shipwrecked relationships. Los Angeles in all its horrible glory. Wry, canny introspection. A hyper-awareness of the passing of time and the fickleness of fashion (musical, interpersonal, commercial). And most especially, changes. In at least two senses of the term: the prospect of starting something, musically speaking, new, and the chord changes that surprise, delight. Which brings us to a consideration of David Steinhart`s artistic ambitions. The Furious Seasons is a record that at once pays tribute to the long history David has enjoyed in playing music with his undeniably talented bass-playing bro (the melodic, hooky lines Jeff comes up with sometimes defy description), and begins (to paraphrase English poet Philip Larkin) "afresh, afresh afresh." For the 13 songs here suggest a certain familiarity as much as a sense of wonderful uncertainty -especially in the twists and turns each song takes. A willing suspension of disbelief -as well as an almost unreal belief in one`s vision. Subtlety rules the day in these songs -and despite the fact that, in auditioning The Furious Seasons` debut, you`re going to be seduced into a sort of dream-state, you are going to have to pay rather close attention in order to grasp fully the suggestiveness, the subversive beauty on offer here. Taking their moniker from a line in an obscure story by American master Raymond Carver, The Furious Seasons make a claim for tumultuous gorgeousness, for reliable restlessness, for the fact that, as the old chestnut goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And for pop music that continues to please immensely, naturally, without overweening effort. Like winter, like spring, like summer, like fall. And acoustically furiously.
 Song #1 - mp3
Song #2 - mp3
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