Oh, What a Life

Personnel: Zac Barnett (vocals, guitar, background vocals); James Adam Shelley (guitar, banjo, mandolin, background vocals); David Rublin (bass guitar, background vocals); Matt Sanchez (drums, percussion, background vocals); Aaron Accetta, Shep Goodman (background vocals).
Recording information: Dirty Canvas Studios, Mt. Kisco, NY; Raw Recording, Brewster, NY.
Photographers: Sharon Lamb; Andrew Zaeh; Meredith Truax.
It's a loaded name that could suggest a number of pop transgressions, from singsongy Warped tour debauchery or erudite Vampire Weekend frivolity to straight-up Mumford & Sons-inspired banality, but Brooklyn's American Authors manage to find the safe spaces in between, taking the most retail-friendly parts of each of those examples and spinning them into something that sounds a little bit like somebody put Fun. and the Lumineers in a mixing bowl and hit them with an immersion blender. The band's major-label debut, Oh, What a Life, is a big, unapologetically upbeat collection of indie pop anthems with similarly unrepentant commercial ambitions that refuse to remain incarcerated behind neon earphone buds. ~ James Christopher Monger