Operating for well over a decade at this point, New York trio Guards have developed a following due to how well they’re able to pull apart and reconstruct their influences without feeling beholden to those same inspirations. Blending anthemic indie rock aesthetics to dreamy pop tonalities, their work forgoes easy genre classification in favor of something more amorphous, something more inclined to shift musical perspective at a moment’s notice.
They’ve recently announced a new album of cover songs, appropriately titled More Cover Songs, which will allow them to focus entirely on ways of subverting the stereotypes so commonly associated with cover records. Built around the collective creativities of Richie Follin, Loren Humphrey, and Kaylie Church, the band tackles songs by The Cure, Suicide, The Velvet Underground, Ramones, and many more.
One of the most impressive ones is their dreamy (no pun intended) version of The Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do is Dream”, a slowly blossoming track that feels both reverent and eager to cast off the shackles of its origins. For a split second you think you’re listening to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”, but the song just as quickly veers into a gorgeous landscape of hushed vocals, minimal instrumentation, and that melody which seems to wind out for ten miles. The band looks for ways to subtly adapt this perfection, effortlessly placing their mark on a song so beloved that we’ll still be singing it 100 years from now.
“The Everly Brothers are one of our biggest inspirations for melody and straight forward songwriting,” Follin explains. “This song always seemed way ahead of its time while somehow being of that exact moment. I think the really special artists are the ones that inspire the artists that inspire even more artists to become artists…they are that kind of special artist. The slow songs are always harder to cover because you can’t hide behind the energy, but this cover felt natural and we were able to do some fun things on it.”
Listen to the song below.
Guards’ new album More Cover Songs is due out August 2 via CGR. Follow the band on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
