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Love Is Chemicals

MusicBlog

"A disconcerting dream you've been having lately"

Location: San Francisco, CA

Website: http://www.loveischemicals.net/

Bio: Love is Chemicals formed in 2001 in San Francisco when singer/guitarist Nate Grover, tired of playing in bands that kept breaking up, convinced his wife ... (more) Courtney to learn to play bass. Soon joined by drummer Steve Galbraith (purloined from a neighboring joke-punk band) and guitarist Nick Mirov (answered a Craigslist ad), the band quickly bonded over a shared love of guitar-heavy '90s indie-rock such as Pavement, Built To Spill, and Sonic Youth. Their 2005 self-titled debut album found them shedding their more overt influences while retaining a similar scruffy, slightly spacy, noisy-but-still-heavily-melodic vibe.

With their second album Song of the Summer Youth Brigade, Love is Chemicals continues to extend and broaden their sound, marrying knotty, meandering guitars and shoegazer atmospherics to a songwriting sensibility informed equally by bright, tuneful west coast indie and moody Brit-pop. With invaluable assistance from producer Christian Hanlon (The Ebb & Flow, Unbunny, Kristin Mueller), the band has fashioned an album that is anthemic without being bombastic, dreamy without being lightweight, wistful without being twee, and noisy without being abrasive. (less)