King Hannah (with Veronica Everheart)

English duo King Hannah‘s wry, singer-songwriter aesthetic evokes contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett, and Sharon van Etten (a featured collaborator on the band’s second album), but their titles and lyrics make clear that they trace their influences to slice-of-life Americana observers like Neil Young and, yes, John Prine. There’s a strange menace lurking behind the quotidian scene they depict in “John Prine on the Radio”: “I’ve been looking, I can’t find an answer, and I can’t concentrate on much these days.” Who among us could say otherwise?

Scottsdale native Veronica Everheart explicitly cites having “[gone] to school with people who had mass amounts of wealth” as a theme in her creative work, and her lyrics and vocal delivery are a touch overwrought, but there’s an ingenuous quality to her songs, contrasted with her crunchy, distorted electronic production, that is undeniably appealing.

King Hannah:

Veronica Everheart: