Buzzbands interviews the black watch; Blurt reviews Highs and Lows

Highs and Lows, released in 2015 by Los Angeles favorites the black watch, has been called “probably the best thing we’ve heard this year from an artist who calls Echo Park home” by Kevin Bronson of Buzzbands. It’s a high compliment from Bronson, who has been digesting the LA neighborhood’s musical output for almost 15 years. Bronson interviewed the black watch’s leader John Andrew Fredrick recently, sheparding him on a long and winding conversation that touches on the meanings behind several of the album’s songs and Fredrick’s mindset as a performer after all of these years as a critically-regarded cult favorite. “We are definitely not a cool band,” Fredrick says. “In some ways, that might make us more cool.” Read the whole thing here.

Blurt Online recently gave Highs and Lows four out of five stars, writing that the band “rarely dips in quality, but the most amazing thing, as exemplified by Highs and Lows, is that it keeps topping itself.” The review praises Fredrick’s lyrics, which “blend literary allusion with colloquial accessibility,” as well as the production from Rob Campanella (the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Quarter After). Read it here.