The California-based Donkeys spent three years on their second album, Living on the Other Side, from start to release, and that combined with the quartet's warm, fluffy, unhurried music might create the impression that the band moves slowly. Some songs sound downright lazy.
"We're laid-back dudes," said keyboardist Anthony Lukens in a phone interview last week. "We try to make it sound like nothing's contrived or rushed. So I would probably take that as a compliment if something sounded, maybe, effortless would be a nicer way to say it. ... We're hardly lazy. ... We're definitely relaxed dudes. It takes us long time to get from Point A to Point B, because we're going to hang out and talk about it for a long time."
Parlophone - the label home to everyone from the Beatles to Colplay in the UK - found the Swedish quintet Love Is All a touch hard to work with.
The Quad Cities quartet Chrash goes by many names, and right now its preference appears to be Chrash Flood. That shape-shifting seems to reflect an almost willful desire for obscurity.
