It happens to be a very exciting time for Ryan and Taylor Lawhon, the brothers who make up Pacific Air. They battled the torrential downpours from Tropical Storm Andrea and completed their first festival performance by kicking off New York City’s Governor’s Ball weekend-long festival. Most importantly, though, their debut album Stop Talking came out yesterday. Pacific Air’s first EP, Long Live Koko, was definitely a success, but Stop Talking offers a solid sense of their sound, one that falls between upbeat rhythms and mellow tempos.
“Lose My Mind” was the single released in anticipation of the album, and it is an excellent summation of the Pacific Air sound: its powerful yet easy-echoic vocals and sharp percussion makes it a natural background for a drive down the California coast. While I love that it captures the essence of the band and it arguably carries the most energy, I think I’m partial to “Sunshine.” Each lyric is so incredibly poetic and well crafted along a foot-tapping melody that it makes this particular track stand out above the rest. The edginess of “Far Away” plays out like Foster the People’s “Miss You” but in a more timid manner so that you are kept a bit more at ease. All in all, Stop Talking is a colorful array of music, with the artists’ passion and emotion oozing with each note of music, making it the type of sound that could flip flop between a summer night’s drive and a high-adrenaline weekend festival.