Balto

California Rock ‘N Roll quartet <a href="spotify:artist:0WG7UI4czXYUBCjTzLxnPx" data-name="Balto">Balto</a> makes timeless, bone shaking songs - attitude and groove, joy and ferocity. They are the kind of band that is unafraid to bleed for their craft. Card-Carrying cultists of the Great American Song, the Great American Groove, and the Great American Highway.

Young, lifelong working musicians with thousands of shows between them - Sheldon Reed, pounding his drums, face contorting with concentration, occasional Jarrett -like moan escaping into the overhead mics. Mr. Adam Ditt on bass guitar, waist-length hair swaying, fingers skating on the lower frets, sounding like <a href="spotify:artist:67ea9eGLXYMsO2eYQRui3w" data-name="The Who">The Who</a>’s John Entwistle after a decade of peyote-fueled wanderings in the Sonoran Desert. <a href="spotify:artist:0Z7Jt9pjlf2DGSYzf8ZG7E" data-name="Tristan Lake Leabu">Tristan Lake Leabu</a>, long limbs askew, infectiously joyous, eminently maximal, jumping between the twin necks of a big SG. Dan Sheron, right hand bleeding on a telecaster, blowing his voice out on one more song before the night is through.

The band has spent the last year recording at the studios of Riley Geare (<a href="spotify:artist:1LeVJ5GPeYDOVUjxx1y7Rp" data-name="Unknown Mortal Orchestra">Unknown Mortal Orchestra</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6QRlkjrHz5A62mqeNZz7t3" data-name="La Luz">La Luz</a>) and Kim Bullard (<a href="spotify:artist:3PhoLpVuITZKcymswpck5b" data-name="Elton John">Elton John</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7AC976RDJzL2asmZuz7qil" data-name="Yes">Yes</a>), as well as their home studio. The tracks have been mixed by Sean O’Brien (<a href="spotify:artist:27jRNjIvlUcGN7FBRDnqhp" data-name="Matt Berninger">Matt Berninger</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5W10uJRsbt9bROJDKoI1Wn" data-name="Moses Sumney">Moses Sumney</a>) and mastered by Howie Weinberg (<a href="spotify:artist:6olE6TJLqED3rqDCT0FyPh" data-name="Nirvana">Nirvana</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:03r4iKL2g2442PT9n2UKsx" data-name="Beastie Boys">Beastie Boys</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2ZvrvbQNrHKwjT7qfGFFUW" data-name="Herbie Hancock">Herbie Hancock</a>). The upcoming album feels like a culmination of their ambitions as recording artists - Echos of the British Invasion &amp; the American Swamp tangle with touches of Petty, Zevon, &amp; Big Star, exploring the absurdity of living in the decline.