Song of the Day: Smokey Brights – Come To Terms

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on The Morning Show with John Richards, is Smokey Brights' “Come To Terms,” the title track from their forthcoming EP Come To Terms, available next year on Freakout Records.

Smokey Brights – Come To Terms (MP3)

It's fitting that Seattle-based rockers Smokey Brights got their start six years ago, right around this same time of the year. When sweethearts Ryan Devlin (guitar, vocals) and Kim West (keys, vocals) couldn't afford presents for friends, they DIY'ed a self-produced Christmas CD featuring covers of "favorite non-holiday-holiday songs" (as they put it), giving the Smokey Brights their first ember.

Flash-forward to the present, and right around the corner in January 2018, the band will share a new EP titled Come To Terms. No lo-fi recordings this time around; instead Devlin and West -- alongside band members Mike Kalnoky, Jim Vermillion, and Nick Krivchenia -- worked with British producer Sam Bell (R.E.M., Minus the Bear). As you can hear from the title track, it's a hazy, fuzzy rocker that hints at an EP full of gritty guitars and soulful synths. The band state the 4-song release features songs about "divisive politics, broken hearts, and absent dialogues", but are quick to point out, it's not a bummer. Instead, it's a call to action, to "come to terms" with it, and to rise above.

You can catch the band on Saturday, January 20th at the Tractor Tavern for the EP Release Show with Sleeping Lessons and Tellers. Keep up with them on Facebook and watch video below of Kim and Ryan performing a stripped-down acoustic version of today’s featured track in their living room.