Peach Pit

Vancouver indie rockers Peach Pit combine jangling, uptempo guitar pop with melancholic lyrics. Occasionally referred to as “sad pop,” their independent debut, 2017′s Being So Normal, found an international audience, prompting them to sign with Columbia for 2020′s You and Your Friends. Their third LP, From 2 to 3, arrived in 2022 sporting a warmer, more acoustic-leaning sound that landed them in the Top Three of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. They returned to the studio with that album’s crew for 2024′s Magpie. Formed in 2014, the band comprised high school pals Neil Smith (vocals, guitar) and Chris Vanderkooy (lead guitar); Vanderkooy’s childhood friend Peter Wilton (bass); and Mikey Pascuzzi (drums). Smith had previously played in the folk band Dogwood and Dahlia, while Vanderkooy and Wilton had learned to play guitar together under the same teacher. The members began writing songs, practicing together for a whole year before playing their first gig. Peach Pit released their debut album, Being So Normal, in 2017 through local D.I.Y. indie label Kingfisher Bluez; it was named after negative feedback they received from the judges of a battle-of-the-bands contest. Peach Pit went viral after a fan in the Philippines, who had a popular online video channel, shared their eponymous song “Peach Pit.” Soon, they started gaining fans all over the world who connected with Smith’s melancholic, even depressive lyrics drawn from his own life experiences. The band toured the U.S. and Europe and signed to Columbia, which released their second album, the John Congleton-produced You and Your Friends, in 2020. For their third outing, Peach Pit teamed up with producer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Jack Johnson) and began to incorporate more acoustic and organic elements into their songs. The resulting album, From 2 to 3, was released in early 2022 and reached number three on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart. Around that time, multi-instrumentalist Dougal McLean joined the band. It wasn’t long before Peach Pit headed back to the studio with Lackritz and engineer Dave Ogilvie (David Bowie, Xavier Rudd) for their fourth album, Magpie. It arrived on Columbia in October 2024. ~ John D. Buchanan