Seratones - “Gotta Get To Know Ya”

SXSW 2020 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 7

Pairs Well With…Alabama Shakes, Yola, The Suffers

While the Seratones’ 2016 record Get Gone takes notes from punk and garage rock, by the time we get to sophomore album POWER, the Shreveport, Louisiana band is a full-on soul revival, bursting with classic R&B melodies. There’s still some psychedelic rock/pop atmospherics to embolden Seratones’ grandly cinematic tone on POWER, but it’s the sweeping, passionate vocals that take their music to the next level. One thing that stands out track to track is how full Seratones’ music is, not just relying on a few hooks, but building ambitiously and with fearless abandon. (Kevin McStravick)

2016 Review: Seratones’ debut single “Chokin’ on Your Spit” is all rock and roll.  Punk guitars, classic psych jams, a loose and spirited vocals - the track jams two minutes of catchy aggression right out of the gate.  It’s the single’s other side “Don’t Need It” that makes their sound immediately click, a slow-jam grunge number that repurposes vocalist AJ Haynes as an R&B/soul singer and she just kills it.  This introduction presents Seratones as a band with two distinct sides, so follow-up seven-inch “Necromancer” / “Take It Easy” came with heightened curiosity.  Both tracks fall somewhere in the middle, driving rock music drawing to a classic past, but performed with personal, lo-fi warmth.