The music of brothers Matt and Bubba Kadane has always played with the concept of time: stretching, elongating, and suspending it. The quality defined Bedhead, the Dallas indie rock band they formed at the start of the ‘90s, and it’s continued to develop over the intervening years. On Snow, their fourth album as the New Year, they've matured this kind of temporal suspension. The duo's trademark qualities are all on display – gently over-driven, interlocked guitars, plaintive vocals, sparse drums, and slow-building crescendos – but the songwriters’ growth over the decades is plainly evident. Like their forebearers Galaxie 500 and Spaceman 3 and peers Low, Codeine, and American Music Club, the Kadanes' songs have always rewarded patient, close listening, but on Snow, the listener never needs to strain for the melodic charm of their songs.
The New Year :: Recent History
The New Year has never been a hurried band. Part of that's because, like Bedhead was, the band's a long distance project. Matt lives in New York, where he teaches history; Bubba in Texas, where he composes music for film and television. But even if the brothers are known for taking their time, the long gap dividing the new LP and its predecessor, 2008’s self-titled The New Year, wasn’t intentional.
“We expected to put the record out a long time ago,” Matt Kadane says with a low chuckle. “We went into the studio about five or six years ago, maybe even seven even, to record some songs thinking, ‘If do this, the rest of the album will quickly follow.’”
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