Letting Up Despite Great Faults, one of the best unknown and not-blogged-about bands I’ve heard over the last year came to Piano’s in New York to open for the overrated Drink Up Buttercup (who I’ve given my thoughts on before) before heading to Austin for SXSW. I expect that LUDGF will be the discovery of many down in Austin. For those of you who haven’t yet heard Letting Up Despite Great Fault’s debut album, it’s fuzzy electropop akin to The Radio Dept., though unlike the Labradors, LUDGF is based out of Sunny California where it may be a little harder to imagine how they find the motivation to make the snowy day music that they make. Regardless of where the motivation comes from, LUDGF makes beautiful, sleepy music perfect for listening to while otherwise zoning out. The band also reminds me a little of Brooklyn-based The Metric Mile, a band I’ve not heard from in some time but that I was in love with after their “How to Beat the SAT” ep was released.
Seeing the band perform live was interesting because they are much younger than I had realized and these guys play like they’ve got many more years worth of wisdom below the belt. The band provides a bit more gusto and energy live, so tracks like “In Steps” which generally are very relaxing are more on the rock side of things, which I actually give as a compliment. LUDGF takes their album and re-imagines it for the live performances, rather than just regurgitating it verbatim. The energy was good and there was a decent sized crowd considering it was one of their first New York appearances and it was LOUD.
I 
highly recommend that you check this album out, because this is a band that has a very bright future by the time they get back from SXSW, and not to mention they have the coolest album cover ever. My favorite tracks are “In Steps”, “The Colors Aren’t You or Me” and then basically everything else. This is the band I’ve been telling all my friends about and it’s time you all know…
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