Smokey Brights in a Seattle-based indie rock band fronted by husband and wife duo Kim West (keys, vocals) and Ryan Devlin (guitar, vocals) and featuring Luke Logan (bass) and Nick Krivchenia (drums). Interestingly, West a barred attorney and Devlin, who has a background in booking, publishing and the punk rock scene met working at a pizzeria during the summers while they were both in college. Much of their material draws from the duo’s transition from friends to life partners, touring in a van across the Pacific Northwest and being in love in an uncertain and uneasy world.
Developing a reputation for explosive live shows centered round warm, harmony rich, arena rock-inspired anthems, the Seattle-based indie act have earned themselves a devoted fanbase across the US, the UK and the European Union. And building upon a growing profile, the band has played sets at SXSW, Bumbershoot Festival, Sasquatch! Festival, Off Beat Festival and Treefort Music Festival.
Their forthcoming Andy Park-produced third album I Love You But Damn is slated for a May 15, 2020 release through Freakout Records. The album’s material was tirelessly demoed int their basement studio then road-tested — before the band went into the studio to record it. Reportedly, the new album reportedly finds the Seattle-based band carefully walking a tightrope between gritty Pacific Northwest rock, 70s AM rock and hook-driven arena pop. “72,” I Love You But Damn‘s first single is an infectious, swooning and hook-driven pop track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, a sinuous bass line, a bluesy guitar line and West’s expressive vocals along with clangs and thumps meant to replicate a bus crowded with commuters. And while sounding like a seamless synthesis of Fleetwood Mac and Purple Rain and 1999-era Prince, the song as the band explains is a love song that takes place on a now-defunct bass line — the 72 — which used to run through North Seattle around the time West and Devlin started to date.
Interestingly, the song finds the duo re-imagining their romantic reunion taking place on the city bus, as they’re both returning home from their respective dismal and mundane day jobs. The song features West’s narrator working up the courage to ask her former lover to come over. As a result, the song manages to evoke an uneasy sense of nostalgia and hope of potential second chances towards love — or anything else for that matter.
