Barcelona

Hailing from Seattle, the three-piece group Barcelona crafts emotive and tuneful compositions that blend dance rhythms with electronic textures and indie pop sensibilities. The band originated in 2005 when vocalist and songwriter Brian Fennel, whose earlier solo work appeared on Safety Songs that same year, joined forces with guitarist and singer Chris Bristol along with drummer Rhett Stonelake. Their initial recordings emphasized an acoustic-driven indie pop aesthetic, evident in the 2007 debut album Absolutes as well as the follow-up Not Quite Yours from 2012. Shifting directions, the group issued the track "Background" in 2013, introducing a sound dominated by synthesizers and oriented toward dance rock. Plans call for the 2014 unveiling of multiple EPs grouped under the title Melodrama.