The Young Sinclairs

Most modern-day garage rock bands aim to sound as hard and frantic as possible, but the Young Sinclairs, a combo from Roanoke, Virginia, are a '60s-influenced group who've sworn allegiance to the jangly sound of classic folk-rock and the early stirrings of what would become psychedelia. The Young Sinclairs emerged from the Magic Twig Community, an aggregation of like-minded musicians working in their area who operate their own recording studio, the Mystic Fortress, where members of the Young Sinclairs have produced and engineered all their own recordings. The group began working together in 2005; Sam Lunsford sings lead and writes the majority of their material, accompanied by multi-instrumentalists Daniel Cundiff, Sean Michael Poff, John Thompson, and Jonathan Woods. Not long after forming, the Young Sinclairs began recording prolifically, releasing a steady stream of limited-edition CD-Rs while building a devoted fan following with their fine live shows. In 2010, the Young Sinclairs dove headfirst into the vinyl format; in rapid succession they released The Sound of the Young Sinclairs, an LP-only collection of 18 songs from their out of print CD-R releases, through Kindercore Records, as well as We Spoke Our Minds, a 7" EP containing four new songs (as well as two bonus tracks when purchased as a digital download) on Planting Seeds Records, and a limited-edition LP, Chimeys, via Chimney Sweep Records. Planting Seeds also re-released Feel Bad, a collection of songs recorded in 2005 and 2006 that received limited release in 2007. (The group's fascination with analog formats also prompted the release of a cassette-only album, O Bummer, on Funny/Not Funny Recordings.) In 2014, the Young Sinclairs' catalog once again received the anthology treatment when the British label Ample Play released the collection This Is the Young Sinclairs.