Overlake
Jersey City, New Jersey, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2012 | INDIE
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Jersey City-based newcomers Overlake are the next act to come out of the North Jersey scene. The trio—which consists of lead vocalist/guitarist Tom Barrett, bassist Lysa Opfer and drummer Scotty Imp—formed in the beginning of 2012, spending the past year penning their Killing Horse debut, Sighs. Along with frequently playing throughout the area, the band recently embarked on a tour that led them to this year’s South By Southwest festival.
Sighs is airy and calming, but has a dark charm to it that is consistent throughout the record. The album opens with a purely instrumental track, appropriately titled, “First.” This isn’t the only completely instrumental song on the LP, and is later followed by “Your KS,” an interlude that is primarily made up of feedback with the low ringing of a guitar in the background. While both are at risk for becoming tedious, the band finds the perfect balance between the tracks and their placement on the full-length that enhances its soft ambience.
The first song after the intro is “Disappearing,” which has been strongly influenced by ’90s alternative rock, and the listener is first introduced to Barrett’s quiet, breathless voice. “Our Sky” and “Fell Too Far” are the two most upbeat on Sighs, both exhibiting a very poppy, indie feel. The latter features Opfer taking a turn at the mic, leading the vocals of the track. “Not Enough” is also notable, beginning gently but building intensity as it reaches its close, combining the melody that carried the song with increasingly vigorous percussion.
Sighs flows together flawlessly and is beautifully mixed, keeping up with the overall chilling theme of the disc. The time Overlake poured into creating their inaugural album does not go unnoticed, and it’ll be exciting to see what they produce next. - The Aquarian
There is a comforting lethargy to Tom Barrett and Lysa Offer’s vocals on Overlake‘s debut album, born out of a by-the-hour studio in Jersey City, New Jersey, where its creators reside. The New Jersey pedigree, elemental melodies and laidback sadness make Yo La Tengo comparisons pretty inevitable, though of course, making music that sounds like ’80s and ’90s college radio rock is a wholly different gesture now than it was back then. Deep nostalgia aside, Sighs is just a very pretty collection of songs, especially in the moments where the guitars are bending. It’s out April 15th via Killing Horse. Tourdates below. - The Fader
Jersey City residents Tom Barrett and Lysa Opfer met while playing in other bands and bonded over a shared love of '90s bands like My Bloody Valentine, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth. This friendship soon led to a musical collaboration and Overlake were born. The duo's debut album, Sighs, is out April 15 via Killing Horse Records. While the influences are apparent, Barrett and Opfer take a different path with them, and their vocal interplay really makes things appealing. Sighs is a warm and fuzzy treat. (Like an autumn sweater? Perhaps.) We've got the debut of the album's penultimate track, "Our Sky," and you can stream it below.
Overlake have a few NY-area shows coming up: Jersey City's The Lamp Post on Saturday (4/5) with kindred spirits Dead Stars (who have a new record too); May 4 at Hoboken Arts and Music Festival; and May 19 at Baby's All Right with The Everymen and The Brooklyn What.
Track stream and tour dates below... - Brooklyn Vegan
"OVERLAKE/Sighs: This pair of Jersey kids might love alt.80s/90s rock, but they open their debut showcase with a clear cut Velvet Underground homage and skewing toward the scary folky side of alt.anything. For all the people that talk the talk, this pair does a great job of walking the walk. You can't go wrong appealing the young and malcontented." - Midwest Record Blog
My first thought after listening to New Jersey natives Overlake’s new record Sighs was – why did I just now find out about this band? The answer is simply that this is their debut record that is set for release on April 15 via Killing Horse Records.
All nine tracks on the record are solid and flow very nice. The single “Disappearing” would have been a monster college rock radio hit if it had been released in 1994. The catchy guitar hook features some very My Bloody Valentine like guitar work. There is a lot of great melody through the record that makes these songs almost feel like you already know them from a past relationship. On “Fell To Far,” the guitar intro moves through the song like a knife through butter. Tom Barrett and Lisa Opfer show their best Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore influence by sharing vocal duties on this track. Another great song is “Our Sky” which sounds as if it could have appeared on the great Doves album Some Cities.
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This record will appeal to fans of 80’s and 90’s guitar indie rock like MBV, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr. It will also appeal to fans of great songwriters like Robert Pollard and Noel Gallagher, who appreciate songwriting as a craft and not a chore. If you love dreamy sonic guitar playing and catchy melodies do yourself a favor and seek this one out.
Key Tracks: “Disappearing”, “Not Enough”, “Fell To Far”
Artists With Similar Fire: Sonic Youth / The Soundtrack Of Our Lives / Doves - The Fire Note
Debut record by Jersey City’s Tom Barrett and Lysa Opfer who’ve created a mini masterpiece here of hazy and melody. Professing a love of MBV, Sonic Youth and Pavement (they they’ve got good taste) they’ve whipped up 9 songs, each with a different personality. My two favorites include the mossy “Back to the Water” and the zippier “Fell Too Far. “ Dive in, water’s fine. - Dagger
Discography
Sighs LP - Release Date 04/15/2014
Travelogue / Winter is Why 7" - Release Date 10/30/2015
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Bio
Overlake is a three-piece band from Jersey City, comprised of Tom Barrett (voice, guitar), Lysa Opfer (Bass, voice), and Nick D’Amore (drums).
When they’re not incessantly waxing philosophical about the musical merits of both MBV and GBV, or working to contribute new innovations to vegan cuisine, or proofreading poorly-written articles in pharmaceutical catalogs on their own time, Overlake are busy honing their own unique brand of noisy dreampop, drawing from such stalwart influences as Dinosaur Jr, Slowdive, and Hoboken’s own Yo La Tengo, a Bar/None alumnus!
They formed in the winter of 2012 while Tom and Lysa were playing in local five-piece hard-rock outfit, WJ and the Sweet Sacrifice. During practices, while the rest of the band would take smoke breaks (neither Tom or Lysa smoke), they would stay behind and play on whatever various instruments were set up and lying around, all the while discovering a musical kinship together. Serendipity struck when they met drummer Nick D’Amore at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Downtown JC in early 2015, only after enduring a seemingly endless Spinal Tap-like run of both hopeful permanents and fill-ins.
Overlake’s sound can only be described as massive, with Barrett’s delay-drenched guitar and whispery, laconic voice backed by the solid coupling of Opfer’s driving basslines and angelic backing vocals, along with D’Amore’s propulsive drum work. They’ve spent the last few years touring throughout the U.S., delighting audiences with their all-enveloping wall of sound, most of the time with their amplifiers draped in netted Christmas lights.
Their new record, Fall, was recorded and co-produced by Cheap Trick-obsessive Tom Beaujour (Nada Surf, Jennifer O’Connor). Unlike previous recordings, where Barrett would play all the drums, they went into the studio a well-oiled apparatus. What they left with was a more expansive collection of songs, their trademark sonics augmented by appearances of sparse piano and elegiac, mournful violin, courtesy of the incomparable Claudia Chopek.
Notes bend, shimmer, and boomerang all throughout the course of Fall, as do the lyrical sentiments. Loving glances turn into sources of pain, which mutate into some form of cautious optimism. Intimacy is fraught, its beauty fleeting. A period makes way for a question mark, which becomes an ellipsis. What Fall greatly captures is how these supposed stages don’t always occur in any logical order, and can make reoccurring appearances.
After all, an ellipsis is comprised of three periods…
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