Megafaun: "Impressions of the Past"

He may be the big beard in town nowadays, but good riddance if you’re able to get Bon Iver out of your band. Dude is a fucking bummer. Especially in light of how similarly-hirsute Megafaun keeps the folksy harmonies and “stuff died” lyrics but in place of the cabin-fever-suicide-note shit plants a bouncy, E6-ish soul frequently unable to keep its tendrils in the soil. “Impressions of the Past” starts out with some acoustic pickings, but soon enough there cometh horns, strings, a weird, plucked piano interlude, ecstatic drum rolls—the kind of blissed out stuff that could trace itself back to the progenitors of psychedelia or whatever but is basically just giddy orchestral mucking about. Then, after like four minutes of hyperactive chord and instrumental changes, we get a snappy, unified (more late-period Can than Akron/Family) refutation of Justin Vernon’s MO: “I can read a painted picture of life as it was in the past / Why did I think it would last / When all the colors keep on shifting?” Take that, nostalgia. Without an asset like Vernon’s murderous, auto-tune falsetto and trainwreck suffering, Megafaun instead take a more balanced outlook that is irresistible. Harmonizing well-produced pop sensibilities with kooky, happy troubadour vibes, they sound like the strong, if slightly faceless, blueprint for a pretty great band.