Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.
As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.
Album: Sunlit Youth (2016)
Artist: Local Natives
Link:
Sometimes, the best laid plains don’t quite work out as intended. This is most apparent on Sunlit Youth, the third album from California four-piece Local Natives - it’s by far their biggest swing for the charts, but the band loses some of that charming roughness in the process.
Local Natives have consistently been regarded as safe, if little else - they’re the kind of group that will comfortably be able to get you to your destination, but there’s not a lot of flamboyance to the sound. It’s the 2000 Chevy Suburban of indie music, that consistent will-run-a-million-miles performance that never really fails, but it’d be a long journey to call it exciting.
With this, though, the band attempts to glitz and glam - to keep with the car metaphor, this is trying to become an Escalade, or more aptly, a Ferrari - when the band just isn’t that. As they’ve attempted to move to indie pop from indie folk, they’ve managed to land a couple hits bouncing along the synths - ‘Dark Days’ is particularly strong - but most of this sounds like a group out of their depth, lacking the instrumentation or the emotion to convey what made them such a compelling listen.
Rating: 7/10
Best Tracks: Dark Days
Worst Tracks: Everything All At Once