Who: Alberta Cross, a quintet of stoner rock revivalists from Brooklyn-via-London-via-Sweden who became one of the summer’s must-see new bands thanks to appearances at Coachella and Bonnaroo.
Sounds Like: Nineties-style shoegaze guitar dissonance fused with the laid-back hippie folk rock of 1970’s Los Angeles. It’s all topped off with the high-lonesome vocals of lead singer Petter Ericson Stakee, a Swedish import whose voice recalls Neil Young and Jim James. Their full-length debut Broken Side of Time features wind tunnels of bent guitar riffs, distort power chords and the haunting melodies of rural American music.
Vital Stats:
• Before recording their new album, the five members of Alberta Cross holed up at Haunted Hollow studio owned by Dave Matthews — the band is signed to Matthews’ ATO label — outside Charlottesville, Virginia. “We were in the middle of the forest, just drinking wine and smoking weed and jamming for, like, 10 hours a day,” Ericson Stakee tells Rolling Stone. These jam sessions help craft the slow-burner “Rise from the Shadows” and the big-sky rocker “Taking Control.”
• Stakee wrote the acoustic number “Ghost of City Life” about the hipsters that walked around the band’s then-home base of Brooklyn, New York. “You know who I’m talking about—the people you meet in the city, the scenesters and all,” Ericson Stakee said. “I was just sick of the city, tired of all the fake people.”
• After recording their album in Austin, Texas, with Spoon producer Mike McCarthy, the band fell in love with the Lone Star capital and are now contemplating a move there. “Everybody welcomed us with open arms: ‘Come on, let me buy you a drink, there’s a par...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily