JAKE BUGG - KISS LIKE THE SUN

Alt-country singer/songwriter Jake Bugg returns with a sunny new single, "Kiss Like The Sun," just in time for the dark, cold time of year.

Summer is already becoming a distant memory. We're several months deep into the new school year. We've all been back from our summer vacations, music festivals, and lazy, hedonistic lives for a quarter of a year. The bikinis and swim trunks are moth-balled for the year, as we slip deeper and deeper into sweater weather.

Late autumn is a slightly odd time of year to release a sunny barnstormer of a country-rock single. "Kiss Like The Sun," the newest single from UK singer/songwriter Jake Bugg, is a welcome blast of warm air and Vitamin D in a gloomy, chilly world.

JAKE BUGG - KISS LIKE THE SUN

"Kiss Like The Sun" finds Bugg switching things off, as he begins work on a new album. Earlier this year, Bugg collaborated with dance outfit Camelphat. "Kiss Like The Sun" finds Bugg splitting the difference between his indie-folk roots and a brighter, bolder modern production. Producer Andrew Watt's production brings Bugg's biting cheese wire acoustic guitar and Bugg's warm, worn vocals to the forefront, over a rip-roaring slide guitar riff. It's a thrilling sound for Bugg, bringing to mind classic country/blues rock staples like Led Zeppelin's "Traveling Riverside Blues."

Like Led Zeppelin, "Kiss Like The Sun" has the potential to bring slightly underground indie-folk to a more mainstream audience, in a way that The White Stripes introduced a whole new generation to stripped-back pre-war blues.

So fire up your sun lamps, take your Vitamin D, and fire up "Kiss Like The Sun." We Are: The Guard recommends it.

J. Simpson occupies the intersection between criticism, creativity, and academia. Based out of Portland, Or., he is the author of Forestpunk, an online journal/brand studying the traces of horror, supernatural, and the occult through music, fashion and culture. He plays in the dreamfolk band Meta-Pinnacle with his partner Lily H. Valentine, with whom he also co-founded Bitstar Productions, a visual arts collective focused on elevating Pop Culture to High Art.