The Orange Peels

SpinART

The garage is the room in the house most people give the least of a damn about; they reserve it to squirrel away porn collections and contraband booze. So, when the time came to record the tunes they’d been fleshing out since 1998, the Orange Peels retreated there—a modernistic hive in Sunnyvale, no less—to record So Far. This Redwood City fivesome’s ’60s-pop sensibilities get blown bigger than life by the garage’s sonically spacious environs. The guitar riffs shimmer more vividly; they’re ultra-expansive in scope and colorful in tone. Such elements might have been removed during the disc’s mixdown; mercifully, the Peels let them be, which results in the Brian Wilson-esque, sun-ripened sounds currently being perfected by Golden State popsters such as the Wondermints and the Negro Problem. Your likelihood of hearing pop music this delish anytime soon is about as minuscule as President Dubya’s IQ.