Chief is a band from the west coast that all went to school on the east coast and they largely play that west coast folk-pop sound pretty well with some more intimate moments to create a very solid debut album here with Modern Rituals. The band creates a sound that evokes similarity to Grand Archives and Dawes in a lot of ways, kind of bringing a more mainstream, hook-laden sound to kind of a 70s west coast folk kind of vibe to create some excellent songs. They evoke both modern styles and a strong influence of bands like Crosby, Stills and Nash with some choice guitar work and vocal harmonies. They have a great knack on a lot of these songs for putting together some great hooks and melodies to create some very nicely put together tracks. Some of the songs on the back half of the album don’t quite fare as well as some of the gems on the front and the style of the band does become a little repetitive, but they write some very good songs and this is definitely a record worth checking out and a band worth keeping an eye on.
The strongest tracks on the album are at the beginning with “The Minute I Saw It” through “In The Valley”, the first 6 tracks on the album, all being very high quality and all kind of eschewing different feelings and tempos out of this kind of focused-rolk-rock genre the band operates in. There is no shortage of shimmering guitar atmospherics and reverbed hooks as they build up some very nice melodies and harmonies on a lot of the songs on this record. For the back half of the record the songs don’t come off as fresh and feel a little forced at times, with the exception of the closing track and ‘single’ from the album, “Night & Day”, which is probably the most emotionally present and intriguing song on the record. It has the most outside-the-box kind of style to it, but ultimately it fits in very well with the rest of the album.
These guys have created a very solid debut album here and have shown they can craft some very listener friendly folk jams and harmonies that are very strong from start to finish. They maybe could have taken a few more chances with the style they operate in and tried to mix things up a little bit more to give the listener a bit more to work with, but ultimately it works extremely well as just a damn well put together rock/folk album that has great hooks in it. They have also shown a real strength in their band to put together this effort of songs and production on their debut and it bodes well for more from these guys in the future. I would like to see them go out on a limb a bit more, because you can tell they could probably bring something great to the table, but it is also hard to say they have really done anything here other than create a very solid debut.
