Band of the Week: Austin’s Wiretree Release One of the Best Under-the-Radar Albums of 2009, ‘Luck’

New video for Wiretree’s song, “Days Gone By”
We have not been able to stop playing one of 2009’s most brilliant pop albums since it crossed our radar a few weeks ago. The album title is Luck from the incredibly talented Austin power pop band Wiretree. If you love masterfully crafted, infectious, melodic pop with vintage 60’s and retro hipster underground influences, chances are you’ll want to add Luck to your CD collection.

Fans of the Matthew Sweet, Paul Weller, Velvet Underground, The La’s and Elliott Smith are the most likely music lovers to turn on, and tune in, to Wiretree. It is bands like Wiretree that keep our faith that independent music is far from dying out.

Wiretree is Kevin Peroni (vocals, guitar, keys), Rachel Peroni (bass), Joshua Kaplan (guitar), and Daniel Blanchard (drums). Their debut, a self-titled EP, was released in 2005 via their own independent label, Cobaltworks Music. In January of 2007, the band released their first LP, Bouldin. If you enjoy Luck as much as we do, you’ll want to get their debut album as well.

There are so many wonderful songs on Luck that it was hard to pick only the three tracks we’ve presented here; choosing just one is nearly impossible. The LP gets better with each spin, which explains why we’ve been listening to it so much. See the video above for the upbeat and catchy song, “Days Gone By.”

The track, “Back in Town,” is one of the band’s best songs; a mix of 80’s style power pop guitar riffs, xylophone chimes and passionate vocals that you might just find yourself listening to again and again. “Falling” is a sweet, drifting pop song about love and longing that would be great for a movie soundtrack or a Valentine’s mixtape. The hooks and choruses of “Satellite Song” makes it one of the many standout tracks on the album.

“Back in Town” – Wiretree from Luck (2009)

“Falling” – Wiretree from Luck (2009)

“Satellite Song” – Wiretree from Luck (2009)

“Big Coat” is an irresistible hook-driven masterpiece that reminds us a lot of Elliot Smith, yet it is brilliantly original. Other great tracks on Bouldin include, “Travelin’ On,” “Summercity,” and “Feel Me.”

“Big Coat” – Wiretree from Bouldin (2007)

It is always surprising to us that when a remarkable LP is pretty much missed by the majority of popular music blogs and websites, which is a big reason why we choose Bands to Watch that are, for the most part, unknown to even die-hard indie music fans.

It’s not that Wiretree haven’t been praised by other publications and blogs; it’s just that they haven’t received the wider exposure their music deserves. The blog, Absolute Powerpop, writes that Luck retains the band’s “signature sound yet broadens it to point where I could see the intelligentsia of indie rock and the poobahs at Pitchfork giving it a thumbs up if they take the time to check it out.”

Why a label like Sub Pop, Merge or Asthmatic Kitty haven’t signed this band is baffling, to say the least. But, in the end, that doesn’t matter; we have Wiretree at the top of our ‘lesser known bands’ lists with four and five stars in iTunes for most of their songs. We can only hope that more people get to hear this fantastic band.

Get Luck via iTunes

Wiretree’s official website

Stream more songs on Wiretree’s MySpace page or their official website.