You Me & Apollo brings its lush, emotional pop to the hi-dive

Brent Cowles started writing the music for You Me and Apollo (due Saturday, February 2, at the hi-dive) in 2007, while still living in Arizona. Three years later, he moved to Fort Collins and spent time refining his songwriting and sound, eventually deciding that he needed a band to turn his already compelling material into something more lush and emotionally expansive. At times playing like countrified pop, Cowles’s songs also have a kind of soulful tone and tasteful melodrama that suggest he and his cohorts are no strangers to the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. The new, self-titled EP from You Me and Apollo is an even richer, more emotionally stirring offering than the quintet’s 2011 full-length, Cards With Cheats.