Living Legend, Self-Appointed

The Stepkids arrived in 2011 sounding like a band that had been locked in a room with every great soul and funk record of the late sixties and early seventies and had emerged, slightly dazed, with a debut album that felt both meticulously researched and genuinely alive. Legend In My Own Mind sits near the heart of that record—wiry guitar, falsetto vocals, the kind of groove that doesn’t announce itself but just settles in and stays. Connecticut produced this, somehow. The world felt slightly more interesting for it.