Tell me you just listened to “Candy Licker Girl”?! I mean, buy how epic is that track? So I was at the Sinclair around 8:15 PM on Thursday in anticipation for a 9 o’clock show featuring Real Estate and Pure X; there were plenty of eager fans already there too, store filling up the nice areas in the mezzanine, buying copies of Days to complete their Real Estate LP collection, and nabbing one of those clean looking Real Estate T’s where the band name is written in cursive. Right, so there I am two beers deep from dinner, getting amped to hear Real Estate transplant my mind to warmer weather, which is apparently never coming back, and what is the Sinclair house DJ playing? Fucking “Candy Licker Girl” by Marvin Sease- and, naturally, all I can think about is licking pussy, which is obviously not epic guitar jangling. And I’m there solo watching a bunch of hybrid hipster/yuppie couples strolling in and I wonder which of these romantics, having listened to “I will lick you till you cum”, are giggling to each other about how they are or are not going to give each other genital pleasure with their respective mouths.

But then Pure X came on and there was no more talk of pussy licking. Pure X are from Texas, and wouldn’t you know it, they sound a lot like Real Estate! Each of their songs sounded like a dragged or stretched out rip of a Real Estate track- as if your record player was spinning an EP at 33 instead of 45- REALLY slow soft rock, with wind chimes, distorted guitar pangs, and a talk box! Add some airy falsetto vocals, and Pure X kinda sounded like they were supposed to be playing at a 90’s themed prom, only the slow jam that was every single song was actually worth listening/making out to. Here’s an example.

Real Estate opened with “Crime” which was cool because they taught us how to play that one. The bulk of the show consisted of their newly released third studio album, Atlas: a collection of perfectly polished, ethereal guitar driven indie-soft rock songs, with deeper or more “grown up” lyrics than the previous two records- songwriting concerned with love and living: “toss and turn all night/don’t know how to make it right/crippling anxiety”, or, “don’t know where I want to be/but I’m glad that you’re with me”. The production quality on the record is stellar, and it was quite easy, too, to digest the sounds live- ear candy- but more than that because Martin Courtney and friends have clearly honed the song making craft to a level of indistinguishable uniqueness. Real Estate did play one track from their first, self-titled LP: “Black Lake” and three from their second album, Days: “Municipality”, “It’s Real” and “Out of Tune”. These were all well received, especially considering the crowd’s insistence that the band play “Beach Comber”- the epic first track jam off Real Estate’s first release. Yes, many would have loved to hear more from that initial album, but the band did just release Atlas, so all is forgiven?

Since you asked, I happen to be a huge fan of the Alex Bleeker led tracks like “Wonder Years” and, from the new album,“How Might I Live”.  They did play “How Might I Live”, but the song lasted a short 2 minutes- perhaps Bleeker’s brevity on Real Estate albums is what makes them so alluring? Idk, I’m super thankful for Alex Bleeker and the Freaks– Ducktails is good shit too. 20 years from now, if we haven’t blown each other up and there’s yet to have been a truly apocalyptic natural disaster, the dudes from Real Estate will get together and play a smorgasbord of music from their handful of code names and it will be even more awesome than this uber awesome Atlas showcase. But yes, Real Estate is super good at what they do.