The Salt Lake City, Utah quintet curates a style of indie rock that is sharply observant and buoyant. Their songs are marked with a nice ebb and flow as the band clearly understands the dynamics of when to lean into things and when to ease up and let the songwriting speak for itself. Along the way their jagged, sometimes choppy song structures are punctuated with chiming guitars, solid rhythms, and rumbling, floor tom happy percussion.

Salt Lake City’s indie-folksters The Devil Whale are pretty impressive. They walk that fine line between classic rock and indie folk which bands like Dr. Dog, Portugal. The Man, Delta Spirit, and The Fling have shined a spotlight on. Their new track “Barracudas” comes complete with a toe-tamping beat, vocal harmonies, and a sing-along chorus of “All my friends are Barracudas.”

The Devil Whale is rooted in Salt Lake City, a town known more for Mormonism than its music scene, but Jones sees this as a good thing. “Our friends in Seattle all feel like they have a very good chance of getting signed or getting some type of notoriety because Barsuk (Records) is there, Sub Pop (Records) is there, there’s a lot of industry presence,” says Jones. “But in a smaller town where there isn’t that presence you definitely have a sense that you have to go out and earn it. So I think that’s kind of positive for being in Salt Lake. And there is a lot of good bands so there is a lot of inspiration from our peers.”

Hailing from Salt Lake City in Utah, The Devil Whale possess a certain disarming sound that makes me want to trek far into the woods, stopping only once I find a suitable clearing of trees — maybe it’s the “aahs” in the chorus or the 60s garage rock-influenced guitar or just the line “I need a vacation before I disappear” that inspires such a mood. In any case, there I will waste away the hours listening to “Barracudas” and the rest of The Devil Whale’s forthcoming sophomore album, Teeth.

The Devil Whale from Salt Lake City really kind of took me for surprise, with a killer set of gorgeous and unique rock’n’roll. At times reminding me of my favorite parts of Big Star and others times putting their own twist on The Velvet Underground, The Devil Whale is seriously a good band, one to look out for!

I’m an indie-folk sucker, so I usually get pretty giddy when something from the genre arrives in my email inbox. A lot of it isn’t very good, but sometimes something will arrive that makes listening to endless amounts of bad stuff worthwhile. One of the good things that recently showed up was The Devil Whale (which, if a real animal, would be frightening). The Salt Lake City based The Devil Whale was formally a trio, but recently added a keyboardist and another guitarist to become a fleshed out sound.

Musically, The Devil Whale can be considered solidly indie for its eclectic nature of unexpected change among soaring melodies, aggressive guitar swings, and start-and-stop direction shifts, but there is a classic pop element filtering through as well. “Any band is going to say it, but we do like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but I don’t think we overtly rip those bands off,” Jones said. “But the instrumentation of the group is definitely a nod in that school of thought.”

Rock, folk, harmonies slippin’ in and under classic pop arrangements with the right amount of feedback when needed, Kryptonite via Salt Lake City. Jones’ songs, the band, on record are subdued, well crafted and produced- live, they explode. The band supports Jones’ lead like a rock machine should. There’s something going on in Utah; there would be no surprise to see the ‘Whale’ sign with a respective indie label in the near future and accidentally open for the likes of indie giants while forging their own path to headline. Catch them now; an amazing, live band, great players in control of beautiful pop-folk arrangements that explode with color.

If Devil Whale frontman Brinton Jones learned anything from writing the band’s 2008 album Like Paraders, it is that airing out personal issues and delving deep into the heart of dysfunctional relationships yield big returns. But the permanence of love, and the lack thereof, is unsustainable; and while a listening audience may receive momentary catharsis through emotional identification, playing those songs every night can be draining. Young Wives, on the other hand, roars out of the gates with something that is infinitely communicated: a general frustration and pointed angst towards the malaise of the American culture, political, and religious landscape. While not totally untethered from the romantic melancholy of Like Paraders, Young Wives represents a lunar step forward in Jones’ songwriting and the band’s newfound openness to experimentation and instrumentation, while remaining grounded in classic rock sensibilities. Repeated listens offer greater rewards than any of the band’s previous work.