Family Crimes

Recording information: Pan American Studio, San Francisco, California (2014).Born in a land somewhere between the muted earth tones of folk and the wanton experimentalism of avant-garde, Skygreen Leopards' long trek from their free-floating beginnings to the buoyant folk-pop of seventh album, Family Crimes, has taken many turns along the way. Part of the Jeweled Antler Collective, early recordings found the band in an acid-damaged mode, a folksier but still plenty weird offshoot of the noise scene that traded in homemade CD-Rs and limited-edition cassettes. 2006's Disciples of California saw the band make a move toward more pastoral country sounds, with hints of their always-experimental background still coming through. These more traditionally strummy sentiments continued on 2009's Gorgeous Johnny, but five years later, Family Crimes sees the group evolving closer still to a skewed take on pop. The folk and country impulses that have long been part of the band's make-up come from more