Album Review: La Luz - Floating Features

As one of the most Californian-sounding bands in circulation, it seems surf-noir quartet La Luz's relocation from Seattle to LA at the end of 2015 was not so much desirable as inevitable.

Something about the famed city's spooky mojo has clearly seeped further into their bones as Floating Features has all the dark allure of a classic Raymond Chandler novel.

Their sound has come sharply into focus here, losing that underlying haze of echo and hum that crept through 2015's Weirdo Shrine. The quartet's songwriting has developed, too, with The Shangri-Las-style vocal harmonies that seem to ebb and flow with the evening tide. La Luz have always had grooves, but even the nightmare themes of Loose Teeth and The Creature (featuring one the band's most commanding guitar solos to date) doesn't stop them from being infectiously danceable. But there's something extra that's hard to pin down about the hypnotic twang of this record. It's like Californian gold dust: an indication that La Luz have fully bloomed into the band they always meant to be.

Floating Features is a big step up for La Luz, hopefully to mainstream success.