With their latest track, Crooked Cranes set a reel of vintage college radio static on fire with proto-punk soul and surf rock swagger. Hailing from Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, this group of lifelong friends, Josh Faw, Dylan Hornaday, Andrew Bateman, and Josh’s younger brother, Addison, on bass, didn’t hold back while laying their influences bare. You can feel the aftershocks of Dinosaur Jr., Built to Spill, and The White Stripes in their foundations, but this tape-deck bruiser refuses to sit neatly beside any one influence. It glows with its own baked-out fever.
‘Mehico’ spills out like a sun-bleached sojourn between DIY indie rock adolescence and late-night poetic abandon. The angular guitar lines flicker like mirages over asphalt, while the rallying vocal delivery scorches with the kind of imagery that sears itself into your synapses. It’s the kind of track you can picture driving the emotional undercurrents of a 00s cult classic like The OC, equal parts sonic catharsis and golden-hour haze.
The lo-fi charm isn’t a by-product—it’s a calculated choice that wraps you in the warmth of nostalgic radio waves. Crooked Cranes channel the spirit of The Psychedelic Furs on a beach retreat, lifting stylistic threads from R.E.M.’s most emotionally honest cuts without ever slipping into mimicry. There’s euphoria here, curated not with gloss, but grit sanded down to something oddly soothing.
‘Mehico’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.
Review by Amelia Vandergast
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