Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg from Long Beach, California, is like so many aspiring young musicians, singing tracks into a PC, studiously learning guitar parts and immersing himself in music. You’ve seen the type, putting videos of themselves playing guitar up on Youtube. So many have talent, so many will keep plugging away until kids, a mortgage and life get in the way.
Now barely out of high school Avigdor and his band Avi Buffalo, formed with three friends, are quite rightly on the cusp of deserved success. The right music, the right faces, the right attitude at the right time.
Snapped up by the label Sub Pop and with a slot on Pavement’s ATP festival in the UK Avi Buffalo is now one of this year’s most talked about acts. Led by the diminutive and cherubic Avigdor and playing like they are straight out of the summer of love Avi Buffalo are a bit of folk here, a jangly guitar riff there and then some.
Their first single, ‘What’ In It For?’, which was originally released on Avi Buffalo’s Myspace site, was what attracted Sub Pop and is the undoubted highlight of the album. For those that haven’t heard it yet, it’s quite simply magical. Timeless, like tracks by Sub Pop label mates Fleet Foxes, it could have been from a Neil Young 70s album or from a mid 60s Byrds album and is one of the catchiest songs of the year.
Even though there is a hint of haste in getting out Avi Buffalo’s first album this year, with just the 10 tracks, there is far more to this debut album than one standout single and a bunch of fillers.
Among other highlights is ‘Remember Last Time’, featuring some superb guitar arrangements, which given that one of Avigdor’s heroes is Wilco’s Nels Cline is perhaps unsurprising.
While much of the album shows a band that is mature beyond their years, with references to 60s folk and psychedelia on tracks such as’ Where’s Your Dirty Mind’, it’s also childlike in places. ‘Summer Cum’ for example is lyrically pretty blunt, but still full of catchy hooks, despite appearing immature and crass.
As debuts go this is up there with the best and shows that Sub Pop is continuing to hook up some of the most interesting acts around.
8.5/10
by Joe Lepper
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