Fat Possum Records hit a new stride these last few years, extending their roster in a couple of interesting directions at once via the likes of Yuck, Smith Westerns, MellowHype, Andrew Bird, Wavves, Youth Lagoon, Spiritualized, Christopher Owens, and Band Of Horses. Today’s specimen, Futurebirds, are closer to the label’s Oxford, MS home, and to the style of that last-mentioned act, though: The Athens, GA sextet trade in a loping, southern-fried wistfulness, and on “Virginia Slims,” the opener to the second LP, they layer harmony and spatial pedal steel wisps into a buttery tune about yearning and ritalin and, well, Virginia Slims. It’s pretty stuff, operating in the zone carved out by the likes of Drive-By Truckers and Band Of Horses, eschewing those acts’ raucousness or big-tent crescendo for a more even-keeled existential crisis. Grab it here:

Futurebirds – “Virginia Slims”

“Virginia Slims” appears on Baba Yaga, Future Birds second LP, out via 4/16 via Fat Possum.

[Photo by Jason Thrasher]