Although best known for their hit song “Notion”, indie rock band The Rare Occasions also has a lot of other great songs up their sleeve.
Members Brian McLaughlin (guitar, vocals) and Luke Imbusch (drums) initially were a part of the Rhode Island band The Valar. While the band lasted for three years, it eventually disbanded as its members enrolled and attended different colleges, making it difficult to consistently meet together and produce music. However, going to university turned out to be for the better, as McLaughlin and Imbusch soon met Jeremy Cohen (bass guitar) and Peter Stone (lead guitar) at their colleges and invited them to join The Custodians, which would soon be known as the Rare Occasions.
The band was formed in Massachusetts, but the members soon moved to LA to pursue their musical careers, creating their identity as a bi-coastal band. They released the iconic single “notion”, which went viral on TikTok and gave them a wide platform to share their music with. They then produced their first album Into The Shallows in 2018, after which guitarist Stone left the group amicably.
The now-trio has released two subsequent albums – Big Whoop (2021) and Through Moonshot Eyes (2024). Their style has become more steady in a way in each new album, showing the members’ confidence in their song-producing methods. They definitely are more on the “rock” side of indie rock, with a lot of their songs coming in with pretty heavy guitar riffs. The guitar work on their songs is really impressive and it’s fun to listen to how each composition contains the same instruments, and yet is so distinctive. They also do an excellent balancing vocals with instrumentation; electric guitars are very in-your-face and so it is easy to drown out anything else, however the vocals also are easy to hear and elevate the melodies.
After an incident with a fan at a 2024 show in Dallas, in which drummer Imbsuch reportedly stormed off the stage. After that, the band went silent. However, this October the band announced they would be introducing temporary drummer Eva Friedman and potentially producing new music.
My Top Ten:
- Notion
- “Bolts” (Big Whoop)
- “Backwards” (Into The Shallows)
- “Control” (Big Whoop)
- “Darling, The Planets” (Through Moonshot Eyes)
- “Mercy Mercy” (Into The Shallows)
- “Shutting You Out” (Into The Shallows)
- “Stay” (Big Whoop)
- “Macaroni Moon” (Through Moonshot Eyes)
- “Scribble” (Through Moonshot Eyes)
For fans of COIN, half࢈alive, Beach Weather, and Dr. Dog.
