The Key Studio Sessions: Caracara

In a previous life, Will Lindsay and George Legatos played electropop for the basement show punk kids in W.C. Lindsay, a group we dug a lot around here at The Key. In a concurrent life, Carlos Pacheco-Perez and Sean Gill are two-thirds of Square Peg Round Hole, the progressive, percussion-driven instrumental ensemble that we also enjoy, whether they’re onstage or in the studio.

This would lead us to reason that we’d be all about Caracara, the new collaborative project of those various musicians. But we were nevertheless surprised how epic their debut record wound up being.

Summer Megalith, out last Friday on Cam Boucher’s Flower Girl Records imprint, is an expansive fusion of voices, with each bandmate’s individual style represented in the whole. You’ve got the punk rock catharsis and pop-minded hooks from Will and Greg; you’ve got the simmering post-rock underbelly, the left-of-center tones and rhythms of Carlos and Sean. Collectively it brings to mind Foxing, or Manchester Orchestra’s barrier-pushing indie rock. Oh, and there are horns.

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The band recorded that killer rendition of album pinnacle “Apotheosis” live for The Key Studio Sessions, where Caracara’s central four-piece was expanded to include cellist / vocalist Nneka Lyn, and a horn section of Max Swan on saxophone, Sam Gellerstein on trombone and Joshua Chase Miller on trumpet and backing vocals — he recorded a Key Studio Session this week too, check it here.

Dynamic-wise, that song offers a little bit of everything that Caracara can do — fusing the anthemic quality of set-opener “Crystalline” with the thundering post-rock of “Glacier” and the haunting minimalism of “Evil” — and taken as a whole, it’s pretty difficult not to be moved.

Listen to it all below, and see Caracara play it in person tonight for their Summer Megalith release party at Everybody Hits. Tickets and more information on the show can be found at the XPN Concert Calendar.