Avi Buffalo

On Avi Buffalo’s heart-melting 2010 self-titled debut, cherub-faced, teenaged singer-songwriter Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg sorts through a typical mish-mash of young-man emotions—joy, frustration, fear, and horniness—with uncommon clarity. Avi Buffalo plays like first-person journalism from the frontlines of adolescence, perfectly capturing the feel of that summer after high school graduation, when young people go about the business of packing up their childhoods and pretending to be prepared for whatever the hell comes next. Musically, Avi Buffalo is indebted to the starry-eyed guitar pop of Built To Spill and The Shins, which practically qualifies as classic rock for Zahner-Isenberg, who’s using his summer break to road test the material for Avi Buffalo’s sophomore effort.

Updated 07/27/2011