Blind Pilot (MySpace) creates infectious folk music, or maybe indie pop music, depending on how you want to take it. That’s all I need say about 3 Rounds and a Sound; it spreads through people like a winter cold everyone wants to get. I first heard this Portland band on the University of Oregon campus radio station KWVA, where my friends at the Sunday Night Sleepover spin music. Blind Pilot immediately struck me as a band that knows how to write good songs.

Frontman Israel Nebeker sings of loss and wonder with a voice smooth enough for anyone to enjoy, and every single song on this album is wonderful. Possibly more energetic than fellow Portland-ites Horse Feathers, 3 Rounds and A Sound is also quite relaxing. Songs like “The Story I Heard”, “Poor Boy”, and “3 Rounds and A Sound”, are all beautifully sang and appropriately subdued with instrumentation ranging from subtle horn lines to marimba. The smoothness of this album is incredible!

That being said, this reviewer would enjoy a little more in the way of dynamics, 3 Rounds can be listened straight through without anything really sticking out other than the fluidity of the melodies coming from Nebeker’s voice.

Another aspect I find particularly interesting about Blind Pilot is their love of the bike tour. The band’s website makes this abundantly clear, and I find it only so appropriate that a band that feels so much like the Pacific Northwest should make this a conscious effort in their music.

Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski prove in 3 Rounds and A Sound that they can produce an album that will turn no one away and provides a message about being who you really are, unabashedly true to yourself.

Blind Pilot: The Story I Heard [mp3]

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Blind Pilot: 3 Rounds And A Sound [mp3]

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Blind Pilot: One Red Thread [mp3]

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Expunged Records [CD, 2009]

1. Oviedo
2. The Story I Heard
3. Paint Or Pollen
4. Poor Boy
5. One Red Thread
6. Go On, Say It
7. Two Towns From Me
8. I Buried A Bone
9. Things I Cannot Recall
10. The Bitter End
11. 3 Rounds And A Sound