By meager means maturing and by all means aging, Queens rockers Closebye have brought jungle gym refinement to their debut album, Lucid News, out January 22 through Sub Rosa Records.
Listen to the album’s lead single “Easy to Forget” below:
Like Neil Young, the boys of Closebye look in the mirror at every day’s break and affirm, “I am a rock god.”
Both born in Dallas, Texas in 1997, Jonah Paul Smith and Julian Paint Smith met in elementary school. They befriended Adam Nguyen over a cafeteria organic orange juice debacle at Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts. Upon all moving to New York City and enrolling at The New School in 2016, they formed a band and released the EP Boring the Camera as Pueblo in 2017.
The band’s debut album included multiple recording sessions in Bearsville, NY (with producer Tim Bright), Fort Worth, TX, Austin, TX, Fort Greene, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens. The album features drummer Charlie Culbert and multi-instrumentalist Ian Salazar, with musical contributions from Kate Davis, Robert Ellis and Pearla.
Mixed by Steve Vealey, Lucid News is a testament to the band’s ripening sound—sweet, sharp, pithy and painless, like the Texas oranges upon which their destiny is staked.
Closebye are headlining their single release show at Elsewhere Zone One, NY on November 17, with support from Annie Blackman and Sofia Wolfson. Tickets are available here.
Stream Closebye here.
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