Review Summary: Nick Reinhart chooses straight-ahead songs rather than the frenetic noisy riffs that he made his name with, yet somehow makes one of his most exciting projects to date.
As someone who's followed his work ever since Untitled and Drugs to the Dear Youth, I'm a little shocked to hear Nick write songs that are so simple while maintaining such a depth and bizarre intrigue within. There's a harmonic sensibility that will be familiar to anyone who's familiar with Tera Melos, Bygones, et al., but that's just about where the similarities end.
This is definitely his most personal album, very stripped back and naked. Despite his reputation for squeedly stompbox wizardry, he's instead writing ear-worms and clear melodies with clean tones and acoustic guitars. Compared to the Disheveled Cuss self-titled, there's some through-line to these songs that feels more honest. I'm not hearing the tinges of Weezer-y pop-punk elements that kept me from fully digging the last outing.
I should also make it clear that the back to basics approach is a preference rather than a rule; this album presents some really awesome moments of noisy weirdness and guest features, it's not just a guy singing with his guitar. Like "Abbott" -- bursting out of a stark, tense, relentless rhythm into a wide open collage of saxophone, free drums, and gentle electric piano raining down on top. Or "Silver Atomic", with Jimmy Chamberlain smashing out a drum solo while synthy guitar smears and stutters over a bouncing acoustic riff. Things seem to change over the course of the album into a more experimental place, but in such a natural way that you don't notice because the noise makes perfect sense.
Feels sad and loving and lonely and weird and peaceful.
