Hummingbird by Local Natives

Hummingbird, Local Natives' second album, came out on January 29, 2013, on Frenchkiss in the US and Infectious in Europe, and it's the sound of a band growing up the hard way. The Orange County group made it with the National's Aaron Dessner producing, and the songs were shaped by two losses: founding bassist Andy Hamm had left, and Kelcey Ayer's mother had recently died.

Where the debut, Gorilla Manor, was sunny and communal, this one is darker and more spacious, all echoing drums from Matthew Frazier, shimmering guitars and keyboards from Ayer and Ryan Hahn, Taylor Rice on bass and guitar, and the three voices stacked into harmonies that stretch out over the ache. "Breakers" and "Heavy Feet" were the singles, and the album climbed to number 12 on the Billboard 200. "Mt. Washington" found a second life in 2015 in the video game Life Is Strange.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.