The Autumns
Los Angeles, California8 reviews across 5 releases
The Autumns were a Los Angeles indie rock band formed in 1997 by childhood friends Matthew Kelly and Frankie Koroshec. Their early music joined atmospheric guitar work to passionate vocals without the angst associated with emo, using e-bow textures to make the guitars both spacious and intricate. Boy With The Aluminum Stilts presented that approach in brief form, while In the Russet Gold of This Vain Hour replaced the melodrama of the earlier The Angel Pool with greater restraint: shimmering guitars, ghostly vocals and carefully placed instrumental details. By Le Carillon, the band had turned toward a deliberately 1950s-inflected form of dreamy pop, with falsetto singing, surf-tinged guitar and romantic lyrics whose elaborate imagery sometimes approached self-parody.
Risk Records collapsed after In the Russet Gold of This Vain Hour, leaving the band without a label just as wider attention seemed possible. Delays and financial problems followed; a fundraising concert helped pay for the mastering of the self-titled album, which arrived in 2004 after a four-year gap. The record gathered earlier elements into a more elaborate form, though its careful arrangements could also sound strained beside the spontaneity of Le Carillon. The Autumns later signed with Bella Union in Britain and released Fake Noise from a Box of Toys in 2007. They disbanded quietly in 2008. Matthew Kelly subsequently worked with The Sound of Animals Fighting and formed Pyramids with R. Loren.
5 releases reviewed
Boy With The Aluminum Stilts
In the Russet Gold of This Vain Hour
The Autumns