The Future Will Destroy You

the husband and wife duo viva voce are based in portland, have released records with respected labels like barsuk and asthmatic kitty and toured with jimmy eat world and the shins. they favor heavily reverbed, mazzy star-like melodies and rigidly metronomic beats that often sound like a drum machine even when there's a person on the skins. but if you look beneath their heavy alt-rock signifiers, kevin and anita robinson often sound like an old-fashion country music duo with the comfortable, give-and-take interplay of a john and june or kenny and dolly. on her own, anita tends to draws out her vocal lines to blend in with the languid guitar melodies as another layer of sound, but when singing in tandem with kevin, the pair exude a forceful presence.