Runway Estates

Runway Estates refuses to wallow in any particular musical genre, which may throw some folks. As the group moves effortlessly from sun-dappled, impressionistic, hushed minimalist psych folk to deeply layered dream pop, it leaves behind a rich array of textures that shimmer and drift. On No Good Horse Thieves, singer-songwriter Patrick Porter gets to exercise his inner shoegaze guitar hero on tracks such as "Wyoming Flirt," "Wilderness Eyes" and "Ike Roe," while Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens of George & Caplin fame contributes his genius for taking conventional sounds and musical structures and putting them back together in unexpected ways. A lot of similar bands are all hint and no delivery, but Runway Estates never shirks that responsibility. Each of these songs is a marvel of brilliantly crafted atmospheric rock.