Hollow

"Why bother?" That's what Nick Johnston asked himself throughout 2010, as the Cut Off Your Hands frontman took a break from the band to put more important things in perspective, like the reasons he decided to pursue music in the first place. After all, it's hard to get excited about your second album after multiple lineup changes, years of touring and curveballs such as scrapped studio sessions and the drummer's hearing loss. "Something clicks in the time off," says Johnston. "I stopped worrying about what we should be doing [and] I began listening to records out of pure fun again." While everything from the moonlit melodies of Echo & the Bunnymen to the shimmering 12-string guitars of the Go-Betweens can be heard in the light and dark shades of Hollow, the record is especially rooted in breakout '60s artists like the Byrds and Bob Dylan. Not to mention all the Kiwi Pop and Paisley Underground acts that ran with those very same influences in the '80s and '90s, including such fellow countrymen as the Bats and Bird Nest Roys.