“On their debut self-titled single, U.S. Velvet switches between deadpan nihilism and battle cries to spit all over the American Dream. California may be suffering through its worst ever wildfire season (‘What’s interesting / Is L.A.’s burning’), and though U.S. Velvet finds light in unlikely places — a washed-up Elvis, a poltergeist in Tuscan leather — anxiety is never far away. As it creeps in and the allure of escape becomes irresistible, Collin and Zahara snarl: ‘We live to erase / Take me to a far gone place.’”