“My favorite parts of the album are where I can hear someone else’s idea taking form, an idea I never would have arrived at.

“This record really feels like the band,” Edling explains. Recorded at Metal Shop with Zack Robbins, The Bunk with Matt Schimelfenig, and at the home Edling and Gallagher share, the colorful, open hearted, and widescreen yet intimate Bananasugarfire feels like the most fully realized version of Golden Apples to date. Golden Apples’ line-up solidified last year into the combination of Edling, drummer Melissa Brain (Marge, Goshupon, Amanda X, Cave People, Yankee Bluff), bassist Matthew Scheuermann (Lowercase Roses, Petal), and Mimi Gallagher (Eight, Nona, Year of Glad, Cave People), and Bananasugarfire is imbued with a tangible camaraderie that elevates the sum of its talented parts. Whereas Shadowland was more of a solitary recording project of vocalist/guitarist Russell Edling, and the self-titled involved a more spontaneous revolving door of collaborators, something definite and resolute is happening on Bananasugarfire : the collective has become collected, the band has arrived. It’s exactly what a truly great indie rock album can be: fun yet fulfilling, inventive yet inviting, confident yet candid–music that lifts you up with melody, noise, and heart.Īrriving hot on the heels of 2021’s Shadowland and 2022’s Golden Apples, Bananasugarfire continues Golden Apples’ prolific streak. The boldly titled album is an undeniable, kaleidoscopic blast of fuzzed out guitars, joyful songwriting, and vibrant production that’s as human as it is hooky. Golden Apples might currently be one of the best kept secrets in guitar music, but their new full-length, Bananasugarfire, is about to change that.

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