Rocky Votolato's music has a hushed, strummy ambiance and bittersweet, minor key melodies that recall Elliott Smith — albeit with more backbeat and a hint of country. Votolato grew up in Dallas before moving to Seattle for high school, and he blends the disparate sensibilities honed in those cities with sparse, emotionally parched paeans that glimmer with cloudy coffeehouse-pop refinement. The songs sweat ache, existential longing, and anguish over life's ephemerality ("Holding Onto Water"). His... More >>>