Santa Monica-based indie rock outfit Chief formed in the late 2000s around the talents of Evan Koga, Mike Moonves, and brothers Danny and Michael Fujikawa. The band’s predilection for sunny Beach Boys/Tom Petty-inspired Pacific Ocean roots rock may suggest a West Coast inception, but the California natives’ transition from friends to band took place out east at New York University. Chief's decades-spanning blend of the Band, the Fleet Foxes, Neil Young, and Band of Horses eventually found them a home on Domino Records, and upon moving back to California, they began putting together their debut. The resulting Modern Rituals arrived on August 17, 2010. ~ James Christophe Monger