Song of the Day: BellaMaine - Three Years

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Every Friday, we feature a Northwestern artist. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Three Years” by Anacortes' BellaMaine from the 2013 self-released EP An Anxious Mind.

BellaMaine - Three Years (MP3)

Formed in 2010, punchy electro pop group Bellamaine is led by the boy/girl harmonies of real life husband and wife Nick and Julianne Thompson. A cross of The Rosebuds’ anguished romanticism and M83’s more conventional pop moments, the quartet’s knack for rallying choruses and sugary melodies masks the ultimately painful themes of the band’s debut release, An Anxious Mind. Three and a half minutes of glistening, shimmering pop, "Three Years" is a powerful closer to the band’s declarative first EP. As Nick Thompson murmurs through the verses across Gaelan Sylvia's grinding beat and Jordan Nielsen’s rumbling bassline, his wife and bandmates all join in for an explosive chorus, only ceasing for a Cure-like breakdown that serves as a fading outro to the EP, the comedown after a sugar-rush high that few bands in Washington have even come close to matching in 2013.

BellaMaine play their next show as part of KEXP's Audioasis Community Partnerships Concerts Presents at Chop Suey on March 23rd. Get more info and tickets for that show here, and keep up with the band at their website and Facebook. You can watch video of the band performing live in KEXP's studio earlier this year here and a new video for "Three Years" here: