From under the Northern Lights of St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, comes the Brilliant Beast, a quartet of twenty-somethings smashing together elements of power-pop, alt-country, punk rock, and lo-fi into a holler all their own. Led by siblings Jordan (vocals, guitar) and Hannah (fiddle, guitar, vocals), the Brilliant Beast crafts catchy pop tunes that have been dragged through the dirt, spit on, and left to die in a roadside ditch.

The Brilliant Beast's latest effort, Neighbors, the follow-up to 2010's folksy collection of heartbreaks, Bestiary, was officially released on November 30th, 2011 by the band. Neighbors is a 7-track snarl of power-pop jingles sure to make you twist your way out of your anxious skin. The mood has shifted from heartbroken to romantically paranoid. The songs on Neighbors chronicle the slow unraveling of a tired relationship through the intense inner-monologue that occurs when lust has turned into lack of trust. It's the initial feeling of losing grip, and the efforts made to keep each other around.

Recorded and mixed in five days, Neighbors marks a new chapter in the Brilliant Beast's saga. Heavily influenced by the magical lo-fi sounds of late-80s power-pop and shoegaze, this album takes the plaintive folk hollers from Bestiary and dips them in a bubbling cauldron of reverb and grit. Produced by St. Paul soundsmith Kasey McKee, the 27-minute EP has a feverish warmth that can only arrive from cassette mixing and basement recording.