Every so often I feel like Brooks from The Shawshank Redemption and marvel at how the (music blog) world has gone and got itself in a big damn hurry while we were away. We’ve taken a much more lackadaisical approach of late, and while I enjoy the pace of things now, I do feel like I’m missing out on everything that’s happening out there. And even though I might miss first singles or album announcements or new cover art by not keeping my ear constantly to the musical grindstone, I still always manage to get the high points. Then I remember that I write a music blog, a largely irrelevant endeavor, and I go back to not minding again.

Case in point: Smith Westerns have a new album, titled Soft Will, that’s due out in a month. The first single from it hit the blogs back at the beginning of March, and I’ve carried on blissfully unaware that it was out there for consumption until yesterday, when the second single was released from the album, “3AM Spiritual.”

“3AM Spiritual” is immediately reminiscent of Sixties radio psych-pop, similar to what Foxygen has been heralded for earlier in the year. But where Foxygen falls flat – in a vague sense, authenticity (though there’s no real way to pin an “authentic” label on something that was new over forty years ago) – Smith Westerns come off as far more earnest in their homage, right down to the guitar breakdown that comes in around the three-minute mark. It’s less about the appearances than it is about the music, and that’s really the only way to define authenticity, especially considering that there hasn’t been anything new under the sun since the anonymous writer of Ecclesiastes opined way back in the Third Century B.C.

Hear the first single from Soft Will, “Varsity”, over at the band’s Soundcloud page. The album is due out on June 25.

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