Candy Hearts, NYC’s Sweetest Valentine

New York City band, Candy Hearts returns with their 2nd full length album, Ripped Up Jeans And Silly Dreams. The down home suburban sunshine of their first album is filtered through a glorious wall of distortion and a full bodied band sound that helps to flesh out their tight knit power pop constructions.

Lead singer, Mariel Loveland posses a voice that cuts deep into everyone’s perpetual 16 year old self, imperfect but honest. The band who carries on in the Matthew Sweet/Teenage Fanclub tradition, reminds me of the latter day era of the Replacements. With songs that contain a strange realness to them, snapshots of life on the road and the big city, merged with a band trying to harness all it’s electricity into 2 minutes.

Recommended listening:

• “What I Want” – The entire vibe of the album is boiled down to the album opener with smart, focused and joyous hooks.

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• “Punk Songs” – A ridiculously catchy acoustic riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on Nirvana’s Incesticide, this 1:11 track is exuberant and perfect.

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You will find these songs worming their way into your subconscious for the next few weeks, so get use to it.

Their new album is available for free digital download here and will be released on cd in March. You can catch them playing at the following places: