An Acute Case: 16 February 2024
A court jester turns executioner, stick in the mud turns popstar, and Survivor survivor turns sincere
Tanner Adell: BUCKLE BUNNY
Country pop that uses the rap aesthetics the boys won’t touch, meaning the fun parts. * (“Buckle Bunny” “See You in Church”)
Tyler Childers: Rustin’ In The Rain
“Sounds great”, “sounds incredible”, “not quite connecting”, “super-slick routine”, “what a voice”, “no limits to what that voice can do”, “too polished", and plenty more listening notes that suggest I’m a bit torn about this probably-perfect album. If it’s not obvious, what makes it stand out is 32-year-old Kentuckian Childers’ voice—about which, like, wow—plus a band that's as full of flying burritos as he is caked in tenant farming. In fact, I don’t ever recall hearing agricultural vernacular deployed in popular song like this. “I’m a hillside plow”? “I have gee'd and haw'd”? “I am pawin with impatience”? “I have grit my bit”? Terrifically weird, and all just from the opener. After that, there’s a lament about unacknowledged emails played to a tune that appears to pre-date that technology (at least, in a format accessible to Lawrence County farmhands) by several decades, a paean to his favourite breed of mule, and love pursued with grit and determination. Also works in covers of Kris Kristofferson (not unexpected) and S.G. Goodman (unexpected). All of which is enough to scuff up the polish and bat down my reservations. A MINUS
Hamell on Trial: Bring The Kids
As Ed Hamell observes on opener “Hail My Rage”, “the wheels of justice are slow”. So for most of these 15 songs he takes it upon himself to put billionaires, Trump-stained Christians, and cost of living exploiters to the sword. British folkie Ruth Theodore assists with executions Musk/Bezos/Carlson and sweetens the general tone with busker esprit, while comical SFX-cum-rhythm parts do something similar for music Hamell calls his most adventurous yet. Never too proud to clown, he also never dumbs down, as sure on wrong from right as he is funny from crass. So when a modern-day Mother Hubbard flashes her thong at her landlord so she can skip rent or gives a security guard at the store she’s shoplifting from a hand job, the humour doesn’t detract from the indignity. Likewise, when the question “any of your girlfriends not been raped?” is answered with “um, actually, no”, it’s both gut punch and punchline. Highly unlikely his music will ever get played in refugee camps or usher immigrants safely across borders, as he fantasises about on “Trail Mix”. He's far too underground for that. But he can, and should, dream. A
Noah Kahan: Stick Season (‘22)
Ed Sheeran aside, Zach Bryan’s was the first name I thought of as I started listening to this hit record that reached second and third on the UK and US album charts but has so far amassed a mere 90 words in the “critical reception” bit of its Wiki entry. Only the harder I fell for it, the more Lewis Capaldi came to mind. Because though Kahan and producer Gabe Simon don’t cut any corners ticking off their folk verities, what sets this apart from other beardo’s shots at commercial success is their mastery of pure pop pleasure. I’m still amazed it’s not song-doctored, such is the thoroughgoing catchiness of a record that’s relentlessly singalongable for most of its first half and for its second is interspersed with flightier melodic pursuits no less lovely even as titles like “Strawberry Wine” trip my Jeff Buckley alarm. And that’s before you get to the lyrics. Fuck me, he can write. With pining sincerity and self-abasing vulnerability, natch—that's folkie SOP. But also with a bitterness that’s never directed at the ex who passed his exit sign and kept on driving, though losing her is inextricably tied up with his feelings towards the northeastern state he claims chilled his attitude. But sad stick in the mud though he may be, he still finds it in him to crack jokes. Good ones, too. Especially about Vermont. One for the welcome sign: “motherfuckers here still don’t know they caught the Boston Bombers.” A
Eliza McLamb: Going Through It
“Masochism’s just more fun than you like to deny” and other troubling attitudes I don’t believe McLamb endorses but am convinced she's experienced the hard way. Producer Sarah Tudzin adds crunch where she can but mostly prevents the narcotised indie pop drifting off. *** (“Punch Drunk” “Strike”)
The Mountain Goats: Jenny of Thebes
Because it’s never occurred to me to storyboard 20 years’ worth of Mountain Goats songs, I won’t claim to understand all of what the Bandcamp page calls a concept about the title character who first appeared on 2002’s All Hail West Texas. But I can appreciate the nuance John Danielle derives from a nervy scansion that remains entirely his own, and the prettiness of his equally twitchy compositions. Where the mode on 2022’s Bleed Out was all guitar, this is soft and ornate, with horns and organs pulling the emotional strings. And though it’s still pop-rock to me, I’m not insensible to the “musical theatre”, “rock opera”, and “folk-rock opera” (okay, maybe that one) levelled in other reviews. His storytelling gift remains for treating action/adventure plots with enough economy that their application is broad enough to fit scenarios and characters beyond Kawasaki-riding mommas who run safe houses and kill the town mayor. On which note, Darnielle’s morbid fascination here peaks here with “Water Tower”, where the hummable hook goes “we’re gonna float downstream” but the subject is bound at the ankles and wrists. A niche artist who’s only getting nicher. A MINUS
Chase Rice: I Hate Cowboys And All Dogs Go To Hell
Dog lovers, relax: the second-half-of-the-title track is merely an exercise in antiphrasis to set up the whopper that he doesn’t miss his ex. Cowboy lovers can simmer down, too. This 38-year-old with the verb-noun randomiser name only hates the John Waynnabe who stole his girl. Apparently, he’s also not too keen on the music career he carved out after an ankle injury ended his shot at the NFL and an appearance of Survivor: Nicaragua ended his chances of snooty country publications giving him favourable reviews that don't tie themselves in knots insisting that he’s not the right kind of country. And for sure, this isn’t in the much-maligned bro-country style the Florida Georgia Line hit with his co-write on it is accused of ushering in. All earnest production values, painstakingly lean songwriting, and mature perspectives, most of these songs are novel takes on the lovesick blues—“Key West to Colorado” calculates it took him 2,288 miles to get over heartbreak, while “If I Were Rock & Roll” sort of inverts the dog song conceit. In a show of consideration for the listener, a handful of rowdy ones break up the sincerity, albeit with less novel angles—viz., “it’s a bad bad day to be a cold cold beer.” A MINUS
underscores: Wallsocket
Set in a fictional town with an impressive online presence, this advances the storytelling hyperpop of 10,000 gecs without managing to its turn nu-metal, EDM, and Nokia dial-tone miscellany into songs you want to hear for conventional musical appeal to the same extent as Laura Les and Dylan Brady’s. ** (“Cops and robbers” “Shoot to kill, kill your darlings”)