Through the course of her nearly two decades of making music, Shana Falana has traveled from coast to coast absorbing life experience to help fuel the kind of dark pop she's been perfecting since pressing record on a four-track for the very first time, along the way losing half a finger, and kicking a serious drug habit. Now a proud resident of the Hudson Valley with nearly seven years of sobriety under her belt, this force of nature leaves it all on the table with the fiery Here Comes the Wave, Falana's second LP for the New Paltz-based Team Love imprint.
Here are nine songs that brightly glow with the wisdom and honesty of a survivor, boasting a more refined sound that splits the difference between Kathleen Hanna and The Lion and the Cobra-era Sinead O'Connor on infectious tunes like "Cloudbeats" and "Brainy Fox." The key single, "Cool Kids," meanwhile, has been helping make waves for Wave because it's an excellently written pop song bursting with Smiths-kissed psychedelia. Meanwhile, the strength of her musicianship and her collaborative kismet with beau/drummer Mike Amari and producer D. James Goodwin achieves a whole new sense of oneness with a transcendental interpretation of the Velvet Underground's "Ocean" that brings a melodic undercurrent to their drone roots. Here Comes the Wave melts the chains connecting Shana Falana to her shoegaze past to smelt a most impressive LP of pure electric gold. Team-love.com.
—Ron Hart