La Sera

La Sera (Hardly Art)

By Gabrielle Moss
Published: February 8th, 2011 | 7:00am

After three years with indie-garage queens the Vivian Girls, vocalist and bassist Katy “Kickball Katy” Goodman has struck out on her own with side project La Sera. The band’s debut finds Goodman trading in the Girls’ trademark freewheeling noise-pop to experiment with something more ethereal (but every bit as lo-fi).

Album opener “Beating Heart” sets the tone for what’s to come with minimal guitar and percussion, a chorus of love-doomed girls, and Goodman chant-singing directives to “aim for the heart.” From there, much of the album treads heavily in traditional girl-group territory, right down to the chiming “Earth Angel” guitars and heartbeat percussion. “Never Come Around” could pass for a Crystals outtake, but with the soul swapped out for girlish and ghostly cooing.

Minimalist indie pop dominates the second half of the album.“Been Here Before” is a slice of jangly sunshine that it’s hard not to clap along to and “Devils Hearts Grow Gold” riffs on a guitar part straight out of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” to create one of the record’s catchiest moments.

The musical playfulness helps balance the album’s frequent morbid lyrics. La Sera may or may not be a break-up album—the lyrics aren’t always clear, but when they are, they seem to deal primarily with heartbreak, desperation, death, and being “so sorry.” “La Sera” roughly translates to “the will be,” and, by the record’s end, it feels like that name could very well refer to the future and to moving on with life.

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La Sera MySpace page

Hardly Art Records