Review Summary: An excellent take on the Wilco/The War On Drugs Sound with shades of the Nineties.
Coming up with the phrase “sounds like” in modern music is often associated with leaning on somebody else’s ideas, even being a copycat. A lot of the time the point is being missed, in pop music, it is often essential that it “sounds like”. The question that should be asked does it sound good or not.
If you say that the Texan band Good Field and their third album Surface Tension “sound like” The War On Drugs, Wilco or the Nineties stalwarts Buffalo Tom or the earlier originating Yo La Tengo in their more energetic moments you would not be wrong, but the key is in the fact that not only do they “sound like” all of those, but they sound really good at that, and that is what should matter.
Paul Price, the main brain behind Good Field and his other three band members are experienced hands but also, which is particularly the case with Price, have the knack for a good melody line , great vocals and some really expansive guitar sound, at times reminding even of another great sounding Texan, Josh T. Pearson from his Lift To Experience phase.
But like The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel, Price first and foremost knows how to come up with excellent song lines, building them on the often neglected progressions that came up in the Nineties with the likes of The Buffalo Tom, early Teenage Fanclub, or Pavement. Having around helping hands like Time Eno of Spoon or James Petralli of White Denim certainly helped, but it was all on the shoulders of Price and the guys, particularly having in mind that most of the album’s tight rhythms were live tracked.
The moment “Necessary Feeling” kicks in you get that long overdue Nineties revival is in, with all of the ten tunes being propelled by Price’s vocals and guitar. With songs like “Naked and Asleep”, the title song “I Can See For Years” you get that positive tension (more than just the surface one) that doesn’t let down throughout the album. Sure it does sound like a few things you’ve heard before. But not only are those things good inspirations, they have been done proud by Price and Good Field, who are on the verge of coming up with their own specific voice.
