Subtle, clever, sensitive, gently poetic, nuanced alt-country and indie-folk by the Boston/ Brooklyn band led by Matt O’Connor across themes of memory, identity, a gender journey, filled with hidden narratives, wry humour and the beautifully bittersweet. Reminiscent also of the another great alt-country band from Boston, Clem Snide a generation ago, as well as Nashville’s Lambchop. Generally stripped back in sound across the quartet, based around guitars and vocals, electric and acoustic, but with Eleanor Elektra adding further guitar, vocals, and touches of accordion, harmonica, synths, Fenn Macon on bass, and James Steinberg on drums, the composition is finely balanced, the songs varying in pace and swirls of mood, all wonderfully timed and maturely composed and deliciously baked. Domestic scenes, including tactile images of food and drink, regularly appear, colouring all kinds of subtle emotions, such as on opener Simple Days (“brooding over the onions, oil snapping in the pan, a little cloud overhead, when you turn on the fan, baby, whatcha thinking? These are the simple days, my Zoloft is working, and the cats are chirping”), or Holy Water (“my grandma gave me holy water to bless our apartment, but we forgot to do it so now, alone on the dresser, the bottle sits”), but within this we glimpse potent, bottled guilt (“hello in there, Maria, hello in there, Katharine, I'm sorry I never call”).
There’s much else to enjoy across the album in such tiny details, such as Family Funeral (“weirdly, the sun's out. Radio plays Twist & Shout. Laughing echoes from the kitchen like a well. When you laugh, I laugh. We have the same laugh”), but among the standouts are the three constrasting singles. Days has a beautiful, upbeat shuffle swing with a delicious guitar riff and a talky delivery (“at the end of the day, I put my apron away then, at night all the spirits come out to party. When the days beat you down, don't forget about me, I'm on a string, I feel everything”); the dreamy, melancholy escapism of Silver Cup (“whenever I feel alone or get sick of myself, I can spend a little time like I'm someone else”); or the powerful, slow love song Huey (“karaoke at our favorite bar, I wanna sing away my cares, text me when you're on the bus, I'll order us a Gansett pair”). Another highlight is the gorgeous fingerpicked Little Secrets of the Heart (“sweeter than a birthday cake, and slippery as skates, little secrets of the heart fill in your brain, trick you with art.”) Overall, gorgeously detailed, perfectly woven work, rewarding each subsequent listen in new subtleties, across exquisite words and melodies. An album to enjoy again in the future? You may well remember this one. Out on Worry Bead Records.
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