Great new Seattle group alert! King Friday—who reportedly have nine albums of material in the can—have been signed by the Tender Loving Empire label. TLE thinks so highly of King Friday, it's going to release all nine full-lengths, starting with The Aristocrats on April 22.

According to TLE's publicist, "[King Friday] haven't given much thought to social media or any sort of self-promotion for that matter. They have a whimsy that can’t be faked—a non-self-aware-stoner-dork vibe. These guys aren’t trying to do something different. They are different. Most importantly, they have an overwhelming passion for creating gritty, pretty psych-pop."

You can check out "A Chart Making Work of Staggering Genius" (someone's been reading Dave Eggers) below and see if TLE's enthusiasm is justified. It's a brash, melodically beautiful and sophisticated song that ends way before you want it to after 133 seconds. I'm hearing traces of the frillier bits of the Byrds and the Move, and the vocals soar somewhere among Paul McCartney's upper register, Paul Simon, and David Crosby. Unlike a lot of new rock that comes through The Stranger's portals, this song makes me want to keep hitting play instead of delete.

The only other King Friday tune we've heard, "Cowboys Must Burn Their Eyes Always Riding at the Sun," is a classic slice of stately, baroque pop that splits the difference between the Millennium and the Beatles ca. Abbey Road without coming off as cloying worship. It gets the job done in 2:34, too. King Friday plumb canonical rock with a rare deftness, making nearly 50-year-old tropes bob through your headspace with freshness. Messing with this kind of ultra-established, Baby Boomer-approved style often results in pallid pastiche, but King Friday succeed through sheer advanced songwriting chops and gorgeous vocal harmonies. It's as simple and complicated as that.