Chicago band the Orchard play rock beautified by time - Chicago Reader

Rootsy, loose-limbed Chicago rockers the Orchard can sound elegant one moment and ramshackle the next. In 2019, the five-piece got started as a cover band, practicing in a Batavia barn next to an apple orchard (hence the name). Their self-released 2024 EP, Again, consists entirely of original material, but it definitely sounds like the work of a group of guys who learned how to play together while figuring out songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, and the Velvet Underground. In keeping with the median sound of those inspirations, the Orchard set the fuzz to low on Again, and the songs feel like floating collections of barely related keyboard and guitar parts, all of them tethered to a sweet, lackadaisical melody that creates an improbably sketchy through line. On "Get Out of the City," lilting guitar kicks off a rollicking 60s-style rock jam that quickly starts to feel drowsy and draggy, as though the master tape is sticking to itself. This makes the Orchard sound a bit like expert thrifters, able to appreciate an old sound for the way its meaning has changed as it's aged.