Maplewood - s/t

Really, really cool release....just dn`t hear this sort of ting much. Rising up on a wave of breezy harmonies and twelve-string acoustic guitars comes Maplewood, evoking a joyride up the Pacific Coast HighwayFor the five musicians who make up Maplewood, classic AM gems like "Ventura Highway" and "Make It with You" evolved from guilty pleasure to buried treasure: In such castoff anthems of mellowness, Maplewood found improbable inspiration, creating something irresistibly fresh from a lost and forsaken genre. Like the scent of night jasmine, the Maplewood sound wafts from the canyons to the beaches and out into the desert, an ode to a California ideal mapped out by such precursors as America, Bread, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Stone Canyon Band, John Phillips, The Byrds, 70s Beach Boys, and even -- gasp -- CSNY. Cosmic Rough Rider fans, rejoice, anotherwords. Blending essential Parsons-era Byrds country, glorious harmonies and Neil Young inspired craftmanship, Maplewood reveals an intimate understanding of the roots that run deep inside the history of rock. "Great songwriting, great vocals, with harmonies, harmonies, harmonies"-Village Voice. Call it canyon rock, call it breezy, call it desperado dust. Listening to Maplewood is like watching a desert sunrise, like spending a dappled afternoon up in the orange groves, like taking a moon-lit walk on the beach - and a swig of dandelion wine - with the one you love the most. "Maplewood...evokes a mythic American pastoral of pleasant valley Sundays replete with Mayan hammocks swinging `neath the flowering trees." -- Pop Matters. "Like other fun things that cause you to romanticize the past, Maplewood make you nostalgic for something you may not really have experienced. They don`t sound exactly like America or Bread or the Byrds or the Flying Burrito Brothers, but they sound exactly how what you remember those bands sounded like." -- New York Press. Very Highly Recommended!

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