Photo courtesy of Terrorbird

While the Oakland, CA band James & Evander describe their music as stoner pop, their down-on-love tracks have a depth that’s just as powerful when sober. “How It Feels,” a single from their debut Bummer Pop, accepts the moment when a couple grows apart and considers how to deal with it in the lyrics. The instrumentals have a reflective tone too, with a steady mix of melancholic guitar chords and gentle synths that pair well with the soft-spoken vocals. Multi-instrumentalist Glenn Jackson told Hive, “We believe that layers are the key to interesting productions and, on this tune, we’d like to think they all work to serve each other in order to make one vast yet cohesive picture.” And “How It Feels” has a sturdy production, even though its story is not.

Bummer Pop is out now and available via Bandcamp.