True Blossom (Supporting Tomato Flower, BabyBaby_Explores)

CRITIC’S PICK: True Blossom are Atlanta OGs at this point. They’ve been playing together since 2017, long before we knew what a Coronavirus was or how it would destroy much of the local culture we had come to know and love. Surviving a pandemic is quite a feat, and they’re making up for lost time with a string of ATL shows after a short tour last year.

True Blossom’s sound fluctuates between jovial and melancholiac, with a through line of groove that gives you that face scrunch — you know the one. The mfs could be singing about a funeral and it’d sound funky as hell. Influences of synth pop, disco, and city pop — a current obsession of mine — give their songs a beach warm glow, yet there’s often a sense of approaching rain from haunting vocals of Sophie Cox — Matthew Warhol