Sunlit Youth by Local Natives

Sunlit Youth, Local Natives' third album, arrived on Loma Vista Recordings on September 9, 2016, and it's the sound of the band throwing the windows open after the grief that shadowed Hummingbird. They made it on the move between 2014 and 2016, recording in Thailand, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Hawaii and Ojai, California, and you can hear the change of air.

Founders Kelcey Ayer, Ryan Hahn and Taylor Rice still pass the lead vocals and instruments around, with Matthew Frazier on drums, but the palette tilts toward synth-pop: glossier textures, brighter pulses, choruses built to be shouted back. The band produced much of it, Hahn included, with Rob Kirwan, Catherine Marks, Lars Stalfors and Little Dragon lending hands. "Past Lives", "Villainy", "Fountain of Youth" and "Coins" all went out ahead of it, "Past Lives" even surfacing on Netflix's Flaked, and the reviews came back warm, averaging 75 on Metacritic. One small blemish: the CD misspells "Psycho Lovers" as "Pyscho Lovers".

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