Long-running Illinois alt-rock duo Local H released their album Lifers last April, just as the world was shutting down. When they otherwise would’ve been touring, band members Scott Lucas and Ryan Harding got busy with some covers. Cover songs have always been a big part of the Local H experience. They released their first covers collection Local H’s Awesome Mix-Tape #1 in 2010, and they followed it with Local H’s Awesome Mix-Tape #2 in 2014. So it only makes sense for the band to release Local H’s Awesome Quarantine Mix-Tape #3 this fall. (It’s not their third quarantine mixtape. It’s their first. The cover art just has the word “awesome” crossed out.)

During the pandemic, Local H took to playing cover songs on Facebook. Now that the band is revving up for a tour with fellow ’90s survivors Soul Asylum and Juliana Hatfield, they’re also preparing to release those covers. On Local H’s Awesome Quarantine Mix-Tape #3, the band has done two different covers of Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” and they’ve also taken on songs from Fountains Of Wayne, Blondie, the Kinks, Mark Lanegan, Eurythmics, and Robert Plant. They’ve just shared one of those covers, a ragged take on Looking Glass’ 1972 chart-topper “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl).”

“Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” is one of the defining fuck-and-run songs of the ’70s, and it’s been showing up on a bunch of soundtracks lately. That’s what brought the song to Local H’s attention. According to Brooklyn Vegan, Scott Lucas says, “I was watching Ozark on Netflix, and they had this episode that featured ‘Brandy.’ My girlfriend turned to me and said, ‘You gotta cover this song!’ So that’s what we did.” The Local H version fuzzes the song up nicely, and Lucas shouts out Ozark on the outro. Below, listen to the Local H cover, the Looking Glass original, and the tracklist for Local H’s Awesome Quarantine Mix-Tape 3.

TRACKLIST:
01 “When Doves Cry (Acoustic)” (Prince cover)
02 “Strangers” (The Kinks cover)
03 “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” (Looking Glass cover)
04 “Here Comes The Rain Again” (Eurythmics cover)
05 “Big Log” (Robert Plant cover)
06 “Hackensack” (Fountains Of Wayne cover)
07 “Ugly Sunday” (Mark Lanegan cover)
08 “Dreaming” (Blondie cover)
09 “When Doves Cry (Electric)” (Prince cover)

Local H’s Awesome Quarantine Mix-Tape #3 is out 10/8 on Brutal Panda.