By Olivia McAuley
Palomino Blond today premiere’s their new single “Creature Natural”, the first release of a two-song split with fellow locals and alt-powerhouse Las Nubes. Along with the release of the track, the band also shares its visual counterpart and their first official music video to date.
The band members of Palomino Blond are young. A point I generally hate mentioning, as I find it both weirdly exploitative, and inherently moot, but I do so in this case only to drive home the sheer impressiveness of their veteran-like disposition and relative impact on the Miami music scene.
Lead singer Carli Acosta and guitarist Kyle Fink have been acquainted with each other since high school, within the Venn-diagram of the Miami backyard music scene. Raven Nieto (Bassist) and Jake Karner (drummer), also Miami natives, appearing in their periphery at some point along the way. In this sense, Palomino Blond’s conception has a sense of inevitability but is definitively a product of great timing and a fateful collision of effective and hungry musicians.
Between them, they have spanned the reaches of Miami’s musical esotericism. Fink’s hardcore project Oculus disbanding shortly before the creation of Palomino Blond, while Acosta’s beach/art-rock outfit Long Shore Drift helped her hone her craft as an imaginative and effective songwriter. Nieto, the bassist, was involved in numerous experimental noise and art-core projects such as Pesh Kab, and Karners’ Beach Boy homage/ retro-inspired pop-rock band ‘The Polar Boys’ (which Acosta made sure to plug, and which, noting during our interview for TML Radio propelled him to “international heartthrob-dom”).
The intelligence of the outfit stands out. Not just in the way they so easily create de-homogenized peak Weezer power pop, but in how they got there. The band released a six-track demo in the spring of last year (including “Creature Natural”), produced and mixed entirely by Kyle Fink in his bedroom. Laying the tracks down primarily based on popular demand from non-local fans, though always with the intention of re-recording.
Enter Davin Sosa and Aric Meerbot, who re-recorded and mixed the songs for re-release. Sovereign figures in the Miami metal scene, Sosa being the drummer of Shroud Eater, and both having recorded, mixed, mastered (or all of the above) several of Shroud Eater’s releases – and plenty of other lauded works from Miami bands and beyond, under their recording company Guzu Recordings. Acosta notes: “It was really fun, I loved what they did on Shroud Eaters material, and they really helped us out, they were flexible with our budget because you know, we’re just starting out.” Fink adding: “It was so cool…he was really behind what we were doing”.
The result is exactly what you would hope, and I dare you to not like it. The track is a perfect amalgam of the player’s musical dichotomy. A distinct but contained heaviness drives the song to fulfill its emotive potential, the guitar tones swelling to create the garage-y, shimmery distortion reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine, but mellowed with the potent sweetness of Acosta’s vocals. It’s unclear where the hook of the song begins and ends. But from the acoustically satisfying riffs to the perfect grunge-pop melody, to the catchy angsty lyrics, and quality recording, the combination is immediately memorable and aesthetically gratifying.
The band’s investment in getting their first official content just right, did not end at securing esteemed sound engineers. The music video for “Creature Natural”, also released today along with the single, is their first ever official music video. Acosta explains she took Raven Nieto’s word for it when it came to the choice of directors Jonathan and Michael Cuartas, longtime friends of the bass player. Happily, however, Acosta was “blown away” by the outcome. The shoot lasted almost 13 hours; a “daunting” and “exhausting” endeavor for the young outfit, but the manpower, creativity, and attention to detail evidently paid off with the final cut (see below).
Today’s release of ‘Creature Natural’, along with the music video, marks the beginning of an ambitious timeline for the band’s year ahead. Confident with their Floridian presence, their next moves revolve around touring on a national level, and the completion of their first full length, which they have already begun recording with Jon Nunez (Yet another musical heavyweight). We over at TML are, for one, excited for what Palomino Blonde has in store next.