In a summer where it seems as if Bay Area indie labels are absolutely killing it, Ryli are here with their long-awaited long-player to claim your hearts. Come and Get Me, with vocals from Yea-Ming Chen (Yea-Ming Chen and the Rumours), is ebullient and truly invigorating. There are a lot of groups who want to sound like this, and lots more looking to the same past touchstones for inspiration, but Ryli are one of the rare few to do this so well.
"Break" roars with promise, guitars carrying this forward to a sort of Pretenders-ish peak around Yea-Ming's voice, while "Medicine Speed", an heir to the kind of thing Velocity Girl and Belly did so well in an earlier age, is a gem of a tune. That one is catchy as heck, and it kicks off the record with the sort of confident pop attack I really love. In other places, like on the Ivy-ish "Silent Colors", more moods are explored, with the mix of vocals and layered instrumentation making even the down-tempo numbers on Come and Get Me consistently charming. "I Think I Need You Around", a favorite here of mine, ramps things up again, with Yea-Ming's winning vocals carrying this one into the sunshine atop jangling hooks.
Yea-Ming Chen (Yea-Ming and the Rumours), Rob Good (The Goods), Luke Robbins (R.E. Seraphin / Yea-Ming and The Rumours), and Ian McBrayer (ex-Sonny and The Sunsets) sound like a band who've been around for years and that is only now committing something to wax. There's both an assurance in the playing, and deftness that is really something special indeed. And while there have been loads of bands from the West Coast doing this kind of thing of late, Ryli do it so well that it's almost surprising. Still, given those players, it shouldn't be too much of a shock how good this is. And while there's a cut on Come and Get Me called "Bad July", I guarantee you that if you play this record a lot next month, your July will be filled with listening pleasure.
Come and Get Me by Ryli will be out on June 27 via Dandy Boy Records. Details below via Bandcamp.
[Photo: Staci DeGagne