Rooney

There are a lot of bands who try to write big summer jams in the hopes that they’ll make the big teen drama poignant moment/closing credits theme song – who all fail miserably at the art of songwriting. Like with everything else in music, you just can’t force summertime soundtracks. Where so many other bands crash and burn with their execution, Rooney have made an entire career of writing quintessential sunny SoCal pop tracks. Masters of emoting nostalgically, Rooney continue to make music that will take you back to that time in your life before you sold out for a nine-to-five office job working for the man. While many of the other bands in their locally-bred scene opted to go the über-indie route, pretensions on full display, the best thing about Rooney is that they’re unashamed in their pop-jammy-ness. It’s all good if you want to sing along. It wouldn’t be a beach party if we weren’t all drunkenly singing along to songs we only knew half the words to anyway, right? - Brien Overly