The Seattle Weekly’s Hannah Levin has bestowed a great honor upon the Ballard music institution Sunset Tavern. “While anticipation for the Crocodile’s re-opening (currently projected for late February) builds, it’s becoming more evident to me all the time that they’ll have a great deal of work to do if they want to regain the space’s previous status as the heart of Seattle’s music community,” she writes. “It’s obvious to me that the Sunset has taken on their hallowed mantle rather seamlessly over the past year.”

(Killer photo by Amy Halligan of the band Green River playing at the Sunset last summer. More photos here.) “Whether it’s the fact that now you can really feel (and occasionally smell) the history when you walk in the door of that Ballard club, or the familial comfort that comes from an almost complete absence of staff turnover, the Sunset has filled the void left when the Croc was unceremoniously shuttered at the end of 2007,” Levin writes. And such compliments are well deserved!