Local Natives - Gorilla Manor.

Winter: ‘tis the season to be nostalgic. It’s a season which invites an aching for the past - an aching to return home. Winter is a genre, with its own conventions; its music is wholesome, reflective, melancholic even. Think Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and now Local Natives, kind of... For while the former are both rooted, for the most part, in thoughtful ennui, Gorilla Manor seems to emerge from the soupy gloom of Bon Iver and the Fleet Foxes’ folksy soundscapes with some urgency. Imagine if Vampire Weekend were from Los Angeles instead of New York, via the Pacific North-West.

The album is peculiar, beguiling even: it’s extremely difficult to pin down to a conventional genre: hence ‘winter’ is its genre, or is it? Gorilla Manor for me was not love at first listen either; it takes some listening to in order to appreciate its idiosyncrasies; to get your head around the sheer individuality of each track and the wanton abandon with which it goes about the changing moods between them, but after a few listens it’s addictive. Their real strength lies in their ability to create an album in which none of the songs are repetitive, and unlike Kings of Leon, the lead’s voice isn’t the overriding force of the act – it may be sacrilege to say it, but I do get bored of Caleb’s desperately unique voice, however brilliant it is.

Not only are the songs not boring, they’re surprising: suddenly changing direction and ending up somewhere new, unexpected. They’re obviously influenced by Fleet Foxes, but Fleet Foxes are restrained, and even when they break out one of their fantastical instrumentals, there’s a sense of reservation there. This is most certainly not the case with this lot – on ‘Sun Hands’ for example, the shouty vocals build up then fade, then we get a break before it erupts again into a wonderfully anarchic chant, followed by a destructive, Pete Townshend-esque instrumental, bridging back into reality before the end choral flourish.

Give it a listen, then you’ll get my fixation with winter and the past. By the end of it I was mooching around on Facebook looking at old photos. For me it really did invoke some sense of nostalgia and warmth, although it is, after all, winter, and there was 6 inches of snow outside. Who knows, who cares? What matters is that the music did elicit a response other than apathy – something I’m finding increasingly rare in music these days.