The Grand Archives couldn't have picked a better time for their first trip east of Chicago. Arriving at the Bowery Ballroom Friday night for their first-ever show in New York, they were just in time to bestow out of nowhere, upon the unsuspecting locals making the trip out on a steamy Friday night, the equivalent of a refreshing glass of cherry limeade, straight from the cool shores of Seattle.

Touring in support of their self-titled first album, the band is fronted by the impressive-in-every-way Mat Brooke (formerly of Band of Horses, from whom he's, thankfully, taken the soaring vocals and solid pop musicianship and left the pretension, although not the beard). Channeling the "ghosts" of Bob Dylan and David Crosby on the album standouts "George Kaminski" and "Miniature Birds," he led the band in the kind of classic '70s'-era high harmonies that soothe the ear and work incredibly well for filling a space like the Bowery Ballroom, especially for a band whose sound isn't especially big, even on the high-energy garage-rocker "The Crime Window," on which they ended the set.

Though initially overlooked when they formed (without the "Grand") in 2007 out of the ashes of pioneering acoustic outfit Carissa's Wierd (from which opener Sera Cahoone also originated), they were helped along largely by hype from the tastemakers at Pitchfork. It's easy to forgive The Grand Archives for this, however, simply because they're so unabashedly old-fashioned -- exemplified by their cover of Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night," a choice so wryly un-hip one can't help but think Brooke knows something you don't. Whether the cool elixir that The Grand Archives are hawking will prove relevant in today's market is dubious, but it's nice to suck down.

- Claire Shefchik