The New Orleans based, indie rock-pop pair of Ted Joyner and Grant Windmer -- The Generationals -- released their second full length album, Actor-Caster, on March 29th.
The duo's debut -- 2009's Con Law -- featured a lo-fi, at times near-authentic 60's sound, highlighted on tracks like "Faces In The Dark" and "When They Fight, They Fight." A funky album best suited for fans of Motown nostalgia, of Mayer Hawthorne, and perhaps of Phoenix, an anticipated EP, Trust, was released in November of 2010. Here, the title track suggested that the group was moving in a new direction, one which sounded, sadly, more like Beach Fossils and less like Stevie Wonder.
Actor-Caster seems to fall somewhere in the middle. A beachy album with a few impossible-not-to-like songs, the twosome seems to have found a niche in the indie scene's increasingly popular Vampire Weekend-esque sound. But they haven't let go completely of their past. While the Con Law era Generationals are sorely missed, "Twenty-Ten" and "Greenleaf," both featured on their website, are the tracks which should sustain fans like me until the next release, one which will be -- I hope -- more of the Motown-inspired, New Orleans rooted Joyner and Windmer and less MGMT-y.
Listen to "Twenty-Ten" and a few throwback tracks after the jump. The Generationals's YouTube channel is pseudo-streaming all of Actor-Caster, as well.
