2011 was a decisive year for San Francisco’s the Fresh & Onlys – including invitations to play All Tomorrow’s Parties and then they joined Deerhunter for a UK tour, extensive treks throughout the US, and standout performances at the Woodsist festivals in NY and Big Sur. Keeping with their notorious urgent pace the Fresh & Onlys released a handful of exclusive 7” singles, and Captured Tracks issued the lush and anthemic August In My Mind EP. To cap off the year, Play It Strange arrived from the infamous In The Red Records with a tour supporting Clinic across the US to follow.

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Play It Strange was the third full length album recorded in just over two years since the band’s inception with previous albums out on Woodsist and Castle Face. Ts also the first recording done outside the band’s own analog home studio. Hot on the heels of touring and arranging these new songs live, Play It Strange was furiously recorded and mixed in one week with Tim Green (Fucking Champs, Comets On Fire) at Louder Studios in order to better capture the muscularity and depth of the band’s live performances.

Play It Strange is a shimmering pop record full of infectious melodic hooks, led by singer Tim Cohen’s hazy romanticism, and the incessantly propulsive rhythms of Shayde Sartin and Kyle Gibson. Play It Strange has an evocative moody swagger that jangles with 80’s guitar pop like the Go-Betweens, Jacobites, or early R.E.M. and a provocative rawness ala Iggy Pop or The Gun Club. The record is saturated with guitarist Wymond Miles sonic textural sprawl full of desert guitar-noir phrases that call to mind Morricone/The Bad Seeds. Play It Strange is an addictive record that will establish the Fresh & Onlys as a band that effortlessly laces together threads of great guitar bands from decades past. They may not be your favorite secret to keep much longer.