Apex Manor: Puff the Magic Drinkers

Sometimes mistaken for Starsky and Hutch

Southern California is a great breeding ground for melodic rock and pop, often with a tinge of dark roots just beneath the blonde highlights. Maybe it’s the sunshine, maybe it’s the bare skin, maybe it’s the Beach Boys imagery, maybe it’s the Ecstasy in the water supply. But nobody mates lyrics that rhyme with guitars that chime to produce hummable offspring like Left Coast South. Is it any wonder our state flower is the Golden (Power) Poppy?

The latest example of our unwaveringly melodic sensibilities is Apex Manor, led by former Broken West frontman Ross Flournoy. When the latter band broke up a couple years ago, Flournoy took his Big Star-meets-the-Beatles mindset and moved from ultra-hip Silver Lake to more pastoral (sorta) Pasadena and hunkered down with an unwelcome case of writer’s block. He eventually escaped the jaws of uncertainty with help from frequent collaborator Adam Vine. Inspired by an online songwriting contest for NPR (whatever it takes), Flournoy managed to pen the aptly named track “Under the Gun,” thereby unlocking the creative floodgates. Like a Guided by Voices float chugging through the Rose Parade, he came up with a large batch of songs, some of them co-written with Vine, and soon they were to the Apex Manor born. The band was named after the peaceful environs of Vine’s apartment, a spot Flournoy dubbed his Los Angeles “Zen place.” This may be hard to envision if your apartment is more like “condemned place,” but that’s artistic inspiration for ya.

Apex Manor’s debut album, “The Year of Magical Drinking,” issued earlier this year on Merge Records, is chock full of indie rock-by-way-of-pop supporting insightful lyrics about romantic and life lessons learned. The opening track, “Southern Decline,” envelops you in a tumbling cascade of guitar, piano and drums, and cruises to the finish line on a bank of “ooh ooh ooh” vocals. The aforementioned “Under the Gun” is a propulsive number with lyrics like “Where were you / when I was turning blue / I tried to breath but you were gone.” “My My Mind” finds Flournoy offering romantic musings in a simple, understated growl a la Pete Yorn. “Teenage Blood” cranks up the guitar energy as Apex Manor channels its inner Strokes with the refrain “got teenage blood running through my veins” / “got teenage blood boiling in my brain.” You can practically feel the percolating hormones. On “Elemental Ways of Speaking,” guitars ring out like something from a lost Coldplay session, if Chris Martin’s lineage had been less Fab Four and more Arthur Lee and Love. “Holly Roller” is a gently acoustic ballad in which Flournoy cautions “Love is like a figure of speech /sometimes I know you can’t practice what you preach.” Then he breaks out his best Chris Isaak falsetto for the lava-like flow of “Burn Me Alive.”

Flournoy mixes plaintive yearning and joyful celebration for the feeling of an indie rock barbecue where wise hipsters frolic to a portable power pop juke box as the late afternoon sun shines through blades of freshly cut grass. There’s something in the air and it’s more than just a collection of jangling guitars, crashing symbols and welcoming vocal harmonies. Apex Manor has amassed a military stockpile of memorable melodies powerful enough to be deemed weapons of mass reflection.