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Feb 05, 2014 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Quilt‘s sophomore album finds the Boston three-piece on the surer footing only time and touring imbue in a band. Their indie-folk debut was recorded on the fly over a year, in friends’ studios with gaps between sessions; for Held in Splendor, the band logged one solid run with producer (and Woods member) Jarvis Taveniere, and the results are tighter. They’ve compiled a hard-rocking collection of songs, and their cues seem taken from a wider range of ‘60s styles. The emphasis, though, seems to be on classic psychedelia, as if they were attempting to compress a whole Nuggets anthology down to a single album. There are shadows here of The Kinks (“Eye of the Pearl,” “I Sleep In Nature”), Kaleidoscope (“Mary Mountain”), The Electric Prunes (“Saturday Bride”), and The Seeds (“Tired & Buttered”). Whether intentional or not, Quilt does a great job of appropriating those warped, vintage tones. The best tracks are when Anna Fox Rochinski takes on lead vocals: “Taking Trains” is a stripped-down, beautiful little folk number which sounds superb even without the complex layering. (www.quiltmusic.bandcamp.com)

Author rating: 7/10