Comprised of founding member singer/songwriter Jack Cherry, Jack Webster (bass), Howard Stewart (drums), Clark Brown (guitar) and Declan Farisse (guitar), the Athens, GA-based indie rock quintet Juan de Fuca can trace their origins back to when Cherry started the band as a solo recording project. And with the release of 2015’s cavern of EP, some of Cherry’s Athens area music friends encouraged Cherry to make something bigger happen with his material. As the story goes, Webster and Stewart opened pushed for Cherry to expand the project into a full-fledged band — and when Brown and Farisee joined the band, the newly constituted quintet because working on developing a sound that drew from shoegaze and early 00s post-punk.
With the January 12, 2018 release of their Drew Vandenberg-produced, full-length debut Solve/Resolve through Arrowhawk Records, the band reportedly attempts to channel the intimacy of early demos with a wide spectrum, layered sound and through the album’s ten tracks, the band’s material focuses on themes of struggle, nihilism, loss and redemption, like a turbulent undertow rumbling across a briefly placid surface; in fact, at the album’s first dates single “All The Time” finds the band pairing layers of jangling and shimmering guitar chords, soaring hooks and a propulsive rhythm section with Cherry’s vocals floating ethereally above the fray. And as you hear the song, it shouldn’t be surprising to see an uncanny resemblance to The Walkmen and others but with a blistering insistence.
