''Sunlit Youth'' is the third studio album by American indie rock band

Local Natives Local Natives is an American indie rock band formed in Orange County, California, and based in Los Angeles. The band currently consists of Taylor Rice (vocals, guitar), Ryan Hahn (guitar, backing vocals), Matthew Frazier (drums) and Nik Ewing (ba ...

, released on September 9, 2016 with

Loma Vista Recordings Loma Vista Recordings is a record label founded by Tom Whalley, former chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Records and Executive of A&R at Interscope Records. The label was initially a joint venture with Republic Records and is based in Beverly Hill ...

Background

''Sunlit Youth'' was recorded between 2014 and 2016 in

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Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

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, and

Ojai, California Ojai ( ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''’Awhaỳ'') is a city in Ventura County, California. Located in the Ojai Valley, it is northwest of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara. The valley is part of the east– ...

Release

The album was preceded by the singles " Past Lives," "Villainy," "Fountain of Youth," and "Coins". Before its release, "Past Lives" was featured in the episode "7th" from the first season of the Netflix series ''

Flaked ''Flaked'' is an American comedy-drama television series created by Will Arnett and Mark Chappell. It stars Arnett as Chip, a self-appointed "guru" who falls in love while he and many other members of the ensemble cast struggle with alcoholism a ...

'', which was released on March 11, 2016.

Goofs

The album has a noticeable misprint of the song "Psycho Lovers" (track #10), which on the CD is labeled as "Pyscho Lovers".

Critical reception

''Sunlit Youth'' received generally favorable reviews from contemporary music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 75, based on 12 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''Sunlit Youth''. ;Local Natives * Taylor Rice – performer * Kelcey Ayer – performer * Ryan Hahn – performer * Matt Frazier – performer * Nik Ewing – performer ;Additional personnel * Local Natives – production * Brian Joseph – production (1-3, 5–8, 10, 12), recording (1-7, 10-12) * Rob Kirwan – production (4), recording (4, 8) * Catherine Marks – production (5), recording (5) *

Little Dragon Little Dragon are a Swedish electronic music band from Gothenburg, Sweden, formed in 1996. The band consists of Yukimi Nagano (vocals, percussion), Erik Bodin (drums), Fredrik Wallin (bass) and Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards). Little Dragon's ...

– production (6) * Ryan Hahn – production (6, 9), recording (6, 9) *

Lars Stalfors Lars Stalfors is an American record producer, mixer, and audio engineer based in Los Angeles, California. Stalfors began his career as a touring member and engineer for the progressive rock band the Mars Volta The Mars Volta is an Americ ...

– production (10), recording (10) * Michael Harris – recording (1-4, 7-9) * Shawn Everett – recording (1-3, 7, 10, 11), mixing (11) * Dave Gaumé – recording (2, 8, 12) * Rouble Kapoor – recording (12) * Craig Silvey – mixing (1-5, 7, 8, 10, 12) * Eduardo de la Paz – mixing (6, 9) *

Bob Ludwig Robert Carl Ludwig (born December 11, 1944), is a retired American mastering engineer. He mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists, including Led Zeppeli ...

– mastering * Brian Roettinger – art direction, photography * Evan McQuaid – photography * Taylor Giali – design assistance * Ryan Whalley – artists and repertoire (A&R) * Phil Costello – artist management

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2016 albums Local Natives albums Loma Vista Recordings albums Albums recorded at Electro-Vox Recording Studios