Style: Beat-heavy indie pop; compare to Passion Pit, Mutemath, M83
Top tracks: “Calm My Soul,” “Love Letters,” “Sugar”
Paper Route’s 2009 debut, Absence, delivered a strong following. Then the band plunged into years of label red tape, cancer in the family, and the dissolution of frontman J.T. Daly’s marriage. The Peace of Wild Things is the infectious catharsis, wearing its heart on its sleeve. The band dances its troubles away with its own style, but influences of Tears for Fears, Cocteau Twins, Moby, and Coldplay take turns surfacing. The synth-heavy sounds swell to epic proportions as literary lyrics grapple with loss. Faith underlies the searching and questioning. “Glass Heart Hymn” is an electro-psalm of lament. And “Calm My Soul” provides a climatic surrender, pleading “God, calm my soul.”
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