L.A. Unheard: Burial at Sea’s slow-burning folk

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Editor’s note: Every week, our colleagues at Brand X’s L.A. Unheard column unearth one of L.A.’s best undiscovered acts.

The band: Burial at Sea, an L.A. trio including former members of defunct locals the Temporary Thing and East Coast hard rockers the Holics.

The sound: Like Travel by Sea -- no relation -- Burial at Sea plays meditative folk rock that treats electric guitars as both featherweight songbirds and tidal noisemakers, though the band concedes to modern-day trends with the occasional synthesizer. (Somewhere, Fleet Foxes is cringing and doing an interview about “authenticity.”) As one might expect, Burial at Sea’s well-honed sound isn’t a sunny one: On “Conjugal Visits,” frontman Andrew Deadman offers a tortured take on addiction and faith, singing, “The bottle can let you down / the Bible can kick you while you’re on the ground.”

The details: Burial at Sea plays the Silverlake Lounge on Tuesday. Look for a debut album this summer.

The rest: Download Burial at Sea’s “I Was a Child,” a cut from the trio’s forthcoming full-length, over on Brand X.

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-- David Greenwald