Riviera is from Chicago and despite often falling under the long shadow of another alt-countryesque band from the same city they have distinguished themselves nobly on their latest long player At The End Of The American Century. Blending the classic rock sound of The Band, The Grateful Dead and Neil Young with the modern voices of alt-country Riviera has crafted a sound that pays homage to its influences while still trying to forge new ground.

KISS – Christine Sixteen

I love the opening—a layer of staccato piano under a distorted bass chop that is, in my mind, riffed out on Gene’s ax bass. The lyrics are stinkers (“She’s been around/but she’s young and clean”) and we get a pedophilic ode as a spoken aside in the third verse, but the two word chorus is classic glam rock that sticks on the lips a long, long time.

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Aphrodite’s Child – The Four Horsemen

Released in 1968, we recently discovered this psychedelic classic and it was the theme song to our last road trip. It has goofy, pseudo-Biblical lyrics and the best drum recording on tape. Plus, you can’t beat that outro.

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Dios – You’ll Get Yours

Not to be confused with Ronnie James’ outfit, Dios is acoustic-based Beatle-pop. Great melodies that don’t rely to heavily on their Fab Four influence. Their Los Arboles EP is one of the best discoveries I made last year and it’s still getting heavy rotation.

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