These kids have done their homework as you obviously could hear a lot of different influences, but at the same time, they had a unique sound built from these three-part-harmonies, a groovy funky bass line, a foot tapping tempo and songs suddenly breaking into multiple parts, going into unexpected directions, just listen to ‘Skinny Bones Jones’! There sometimes was a tzigane cowboy idea going on (‘Living Proof’), with big arena rock developments, or even some doo-wop sweet harmonies (‘What you Wanna do’), going melancholic then gypsy cabaret (‘Should’) … it was a curious sound, always eager to explore new alleys, but it was certainly working.
So many indie bands sound alike, but Infantree was showing a real uniqueness which was certainly borrowing from the 70s and way beyond, ‘Fibber’ had a little bit of this Jefferson-Airplane-Grateful-Dead-CSN-hippie generation smoking through the cracks of the song, but the soothing, lush, super-harmonious vocals of Alex Vojandi, Donald Fisher, Matt Kronish were quite different from anything I had heard; it was folky, nostalgic, passionate, eerie. Their set was a real delight successfully mixing genres, Americana introducing Spanish classic guitars, blues-folk harmonies morphing into classic rock. They looked so young, but were producing a very mature sound and in particular Alex Vojandi, standing in the middle of the stage and holding his guitar very high, looked like the frailest one but had the strongest voice dominating the others’ ones.
The Los Angeles quartet is now signed to Vapor Records, Neil Young’s label, they have already played at Bonaroo, Wakarusa, Young’s Bridge School Benefit, San Francisco’s Outside Lands among many other places, and they have already released their second album ‘Hero’s Dose’. Their complex music sounded like a nice heritage to a psyche-pop-rock-folk tradition, going hybrid at each song, from intimate and meticulous vocal harmonies to epic classic rock jams… no wonder Neil Young noticed.
Setlist
Skinny Bones
Living Proof
Day & Night
What you Wanna Do
Should
Fibber
Simple Bird
Fight for evil
Work Horse
Aint nobody