Band of the Week: Bodies of Water

Hometown: Los Angeles, Calif.

Fun Fact: In high school, founding member David Metcalf was in a band called Hitler’s Gay Son.

Why They’re Worth Watching: The prog-meets-gospel-meets-psych pop of the band's second full-length, A Certain Feeling, boasts an enticing mix of rich vocal harmonies, proggy guitar jams and lively horn flourishes.

For Fans Of: Arcade Fire, Yes, Os Mutantes, Polyphonic Spree

Grand, theatrical, multi-part arrangements. Bold group harmonies. The lingering presence of an organ. All of the above created by a set of musicians anchored by a husband-and-wife team.

Sound familiar? Well, Arcade Fire this is not. True, there are obvious similarities between Los Angeles’ Bodies of Water and the band’s peers from up North. But rather than drape their music in gloom-and-doom drama, Bodies of Water’s late-July offering, A Certain Feeling, is more an exercise in sprawling psych-rock.

The group got its start in 2005 after husband and wife David and Meredith Metcalf recruited some of their friends to get together and play. In the early days the band called itself Unicorn of Death (“It was just my email address, and so we threw it on there,” David says) before eventually settling on its current moniker.

A self-titled EP appeared that same year, but it wasn’t until its follow-up, Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink, that heads started to turn. Although initially self-released in July 2007, the album’s lush orchestration and playful California-style pop caught the attention of Bloomington, Ind.-based Secretly Canadian, which re-released the album in January.

Soon after, the band began work on its next album, which brought it out of the studio and into the Metcalfs' home for recording. “We probably spent two weeks recording and the rest of the time mixing,” David says. “The mixing kind of takes a long time because we have sort of an extended band that plays on it.” In addition to the core four-piece of David on guitar, Meredith on organ, Jessie Conklin on drums and Kyle Gladden on bass, a second drummer and horn section were brought in to lay tracks as well, to give the album its full-bodied, layered sound.

Whereas Ears Will Pop was more harmony-rich choral pop, A Certain Feeling has a darker, proggy edge to it. David says Yes and Ennio Morricone influenced this particular batch of songs, which he wrote with input from his bandmates. “I usually have kind of a skeleton for [the songs],” he says, “and then we try and figure out those parts and harmonies we can link together.”

The multi-part arrangements give the album both a density and expansiveness that sound greater than the sum of its parts. Arcade Fire comparisons are most evident on the call-and-response of “Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey.” Elsewhere, there’s gospel feel to “Water Here,” and “Even in a Cave” builds from isolated vocals into an Os Mutantes-esque tropicalia jam.

With two full-lengths already under the group’s belt, Metcalf is wasting no time getting started on the next release. When not working, he says, “I get a little impatient.”

Listen to Bodies of Water's "Under the Pines" from A Certain Feeling: