Familiarize Yourself

I’m a sucker for catchy melodies, dance music and bands with cute girls on vocals. So, when my friend Matt, the owner of my favorite record store Underground Sounds, suggested a band he compared to early Rilo Kiley, my interest was piqued. What he he gave me was a copy of live shows and demos from Lightning Love, a local band that I instantly fell in love with the sound of.

Ben Collins, Leah Diehl, Aaron Diehl

Even in the rough recordings, which I first heard in my rusted out Honda Civic with water rotted speakers, I was smitten with this band. There’s lots of keyboards, straight to the point drumming, minimal but effective guitar riffs, and the lyrics are up front with you. This trio has a clear knowledge of how to write music that makes you want to do more than stand there tapping your foot and bobbing your head at live shows.

Their debut album, November Birthday, was one of my favorite releases in 2009 and the number of plays it has received in my iTunes library is obscenely higher than most other albums, including any of Rilo Kiley’s. Lead singer, Leah Diehl’s lyrics are honest, playful and full of the frustrated situations we face as being young, drunk and in search of love and good times. The music is simple but more often than not reaches right to the heart of many daily encounters we’re all forced to deal with, such as drunkenly puking in front of our friends and having them be so disgusted they take off on us- to trying to figure out why that guy we were dating was seeing some other girl at the same time.

If you’re like me with a weakness for innocently crafted and infectiously catchy pop songs, you’ll love Lighting Love.

Enjoy.