Events

[INDIE ROCK] I imagine the perfect setting to listen to a Real Estate record as a shag carpeted den; maybe the carpet is green or yellow and the walls are wood paneled. I’m sitting in an Eames lounge chair in the middle of the den, more like a home library, listening to their latest album, Atlas, while reading something like Retromania by Simon Reynolds. This is a band that makes comfort music. Though it’s music rooted in the past—they specifically note another New Jersey-based rock band, the Feelies (most active between the mid 1970s and early 1990s) as a primary influence and they often borrow photography or art from the 1960s for their album covers—the music also has a timeless, universal feel. Their latest, 2014’s Atlas, is a moody, yet catchy jangle pop masterpiece—the first of the band’s three full lengths that steps out of the comfort zone they’ve flourished in. Guitarist Matt Mondanile still weaves in shimmering, instantly classic melodies but on this record singer Martin Courtney aches publicly for the first time on themes like emptiness and lost time. This only adds another layer of lyrical substance to the band’s already heavily instrumentally layered music. Real Estate comes to the Tralf Music Hall on Saturday, June 20 with William Tyler and Damian. The first 30 people to show up to the show wearing a buffaBLOG Herd Fest bracelet get in for free.