Lo-fi and low key, The Occasion is a quintet aiming to leave you in a peaceful place with their transient loops, organic melodies, and all around sound manipulations. On the NYC clan's eight-track sojourn, ambience and luxury reign, as tracks like the hypnotic "I Can't Stop Falling" rely on repetitive riffing, while the melancholy organ in "Ease Away" sets a dream-like tone that rivals anything by today's indie rock mopesters. The Occasion allows their grooves the hearty irony to speak volumes by not cranking to 11: instead, songs like "Smoke and Mirrors" sweep you inside an alluring, meticulously created musical landscape with strokes of intensity rather than a turn of the volume knob.

Mike SOS