I don’t know why this is always so surprising. You should get good at your job after forty years, but that somehow rarely happens in the music industry. For The Feelies, it might be a sense of mortality that’s compelling them to write such good music. Or maybe it’s just the lo-fi acoustic guitar vibe that brings out the best in them.

Either way, it doesn’t matter when the music is this good. The album is largely acoustic, and that’s great for The Feelies — it puts the focus on their songwriting, and not on their abilities as musicians. The instrumentation and the lyrics are front and centre, and almost feel like easy listening.

There’s a quality here that’s unsurprising for a band with their experience. Any great band from The Feelies’ era has to put out great acoustic rock. It’s a requirement. And here, whether it’s on the mellow album opener “In Between” or sing-alongs like “Stay the Course”, the band is staking a claim.

As the album goes on, it picks up a lot of steam. “Gone, Gone, Gone” is significantly faster than “In Between”. The final track, when the band reprises “In Between” again, is a fascinating case study of how a track can fall apart. “In Between (Reprise)” builds up until it self-destructs into a wall of electric distortions and noise.

For a band apparently writing music about their own mortality, that should perhaps be unsurprising. As time goes on, they increasingly run out of it, and the album has an increased sense of urgency by its final track.

But truth be told, I don’t think there’s a grand statement here about life or death. I don’t want to read into it. That being said, increasing the momentum in the back half of the record is a great — and unusual — way to maintain interest. And it makes each subsequent listen that much more rewarding.

It’s easy to recommend The Feelies’ latest album. In Between is brilliantly paced and written. It’s all killer and no filler, and fans of the band — and lovers of indie rock — would be remiss to miss it.

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Human is such a different album that Rag’N’Bone Man almost needs a new name. (His earlier work, particularly Disfigured, suited it much better).

But all that withstanding, this new style suits Rory Graham so much better that it’s hard to complain. From the opening (titular) track, Graham totally dominates Human. In fact, his old style was so dominating musically that I had no idea Graham was this good of a singer!

Nearly every track is worth writing about. The afore-mentioned title track is a stunning opener that capitalizes on everything that Human is about: swaggering bass lines, blues influence, and a huge pop sheen overtop of everything. “Bitter End” is a track that simmers thanks to an incredible performance from Graham. “Be the Man” is incredibly pop-heavy, but Graham’s baritone voice carries it through the entire song.

There are some songs that are particularly strong. “Love You Any Less” is a song that will no doubt capture the radio the same way Sam Smith does. It’s an incredible, raw performance from Graham overtop of a remarkably bare backing track that lets his voice breathe.

“Die Easy” is an a cappella performance that simply captivates. There’s nobody with a voice like Graham’s on the market.

Even his older tracks, like “Wolves”, are given a bit of a sheen make-over here that put an extra focus on Graham’s voice. But “Wolves” doesn’t sit as well with this new, cotton candy style that Graham’s performing as now.

And the occasional track features a hip hop performance, which is something that Graham was doing in 2014 too (with a Vince Staples nod then). But these days, it doesn’t sit as well.

When the old Rag’n’Bone Man collides with the new one, there’s a slight disconnect.

But despite that, the debut record from one of the most intimidating voices in neo-blues is an astounding effort, and one that I’ve been listening to again and again over the past week. It’s easy to get into, and it sticks in your head. Rag’n’Bone Man is one of the most promising new performers of the past five years.

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You folks call the music you play “Cosmic Country”. Describe how that style came to be. How would you describe it to somebody who’s never heard of SUSTO?

We used the term “cosmic country”  early on, but I’m not sure we would use that anymore. I felt like it fit what we were trying to do with the first record, we were going for a type of country that was both rough around the edges & far out.

Thinking in terms of the new album, I haven’t really thought of it as a “cosmic country” album until this interview, but I guess in a lot of ways, that description fits & I’m Fine Today better than the self-titled album. There are country or alt-country undertones throughout the album, but it’s wrapped in all these different genres to help keep it fresh and (we hope) interesting. It’s a fusion of roots, electronic, rock, and world music.

& I’m Fine Today is your sophomore album. Now that you’ve been playing cosmic country for a couple of years, have you met any imitators yet?

I wouldn’t say we have encountered imitators, although I hope that we have inspired some people. I mean, I think one of the coolest things about music is that everyone is influenced by everyone. We definitely have some heavy influencers, and it would be an honor for someone to consider themselves influenced by what we are doing.

& I’m Fine Today is a big step up from your debut. It feels like a whole other level, from the songwriting to the production. What’s changed since SUSTO came out in 2014?

I think the more time you spend doing something, the better you get at it. Plus, we actually had the time and money to make this record pretty much exactly like we wanted — within reason. I think that’s why there is such progress between the two albums. I still love our first record and I’m thankful for it, because people really latched onto it. And it made it possible for us to make & I’m Fine Today, to move forward and get better.

I think that continuing the conversation and making art for the sake of social progress is worth pissing a few people off.

You guys are from South Carolina, and I know your hearts are there. In the current political climate, what’s the response been to some of these topical songs, like “Gay in the South”, in the southern states you call home?

The reaction has been what we’d expected. A lot of people are very supportive and are happy to hear music that addresses real social/cultural issues at hand. Others have definitely pushed back. People have tweeted at me saying that I’m going to hell. Some of my family members have stopped talking to me. But you know what, I don’t care. I knew that would happen but I think continuing the conversation and making art for the sake of social progress is worth pissing a few people off.

Trump and others have made a lot of us feel like there are two very distinct sides in this country. I just don’t think that is true. There are definitely far right and far left ends of the spectrum but I think we have a lot of good people in this country (and in the whole world for that matter) that want to find common ground.

There’s a lot of fear mongering out there, a lot of “us vs them” mentality, and our goal as a band is to help combat that. We want to spread love and respect for humanity. We are trying to be a different voice than what people hear on the news or read on Facebook. Hope is a powerful thing. People told me when I was young that, when I got older, I’d realize that the world can’t be changed — that it is how it is and it will always be that way. Those people were fucking wrong about the world and wrong about me.

What’s a day look like for you when you’re on tour?

(laughing) It’s usually pretty boring. We spend a lot of time in the van just getting from one place to the next, or in hotels. This tour we have had a lot more press stuff to do, like this interview + radio, TV & a few in-store performances at record stores, that helps break up the monotony. Still, the best part of everyday is playing the show. That’s why we’re all really out here and that’s what we really enjoy.

We are trying to be a different voice than what people hear on the news or read on Facebook. Hope is a powerful thing.

Any current albums on repeat?

Still listening to a lot of favorites from 2016 (Whitney, Jonny Fritz, JPKS). But I’m looking forward to some upcoming releases this year!

As a band, what kind of legacy do you want to leave?

I hope that we can bring some joy to the world and help bring about some real positive change. Big or small, we just want to help if we can.

Thanks for spending some time with us, Justin!

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That makes Snowdonia a slightly difficult affair.

In 2015, Thomas Feteke, Surfer Blood’s guitarist, left Surfer Blood after being diagnosed with a rare form of stomach cancer. Snowdonia is the band’s first release since his death, and the only one in Surfer Blood’s career thus far to be written without any input from him.

To complicate matters even further, longtime bass guitarist Kevin Williams left the band in October last year to “pursue other opportunities” (I haven’t heard what he’s up to yet).

That left only two members of the original group: singer John Paul Pitts and drummer Tyler Schwarz. The band brought in an old friend of theirs from high school, Lindsey Mills, to replace Williams on bass. Mike McCleary has the even-more-difficult job of filling in for Thomas Feteke.

So Snowdonia is very much a record with roots in loss, starring a band in transition.

Sometimes, this is obvious. There’s new ground broken on Snowdonia that has little in common with Surfer Blood’s roots. Tracks like “Six Flags in F or G” are more experimental than anything the band has done before. (And you can tell they’re a direct result of Feteke’s death: Pitts describes what he feels as “parasitic grief” on the track.)

If anything, tracks like these make it clear that the band is going through a phase where everybody has to get to know each other again. Things don’t necessarily gel the way they used to.

But on occasion, they do gel very well. “Frozen” is one of the best indie songs I’ve heard in a while, with an astoundingly catchy riff and melody that reminds me of their output circa 2010. But unlike that year’s Astro Coast, Snowdonia feels less focused and less refined. Tracks like “Instant Doppelgängers” and “Taking Care of Eddy” feel like vintage Surfer Blood, even while they tread new ground, but they don’t hit below the belt the same way that Astro Coast did (and does).

All that being said, Snowdonia is an impressive record because it feels like lightning in a bottle. Few bands are willing to be this openly vulnerable with their audiences, opening up the most difficult chapters in their lives for all to see. It might not go down as a classic, but Snowdonia is better than anybody had any right to expect. It’s a fun record, with some great ideas and new directions for the band.

And as a case study of bands in transition, it’s hard to beat.

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If that’s true, it’s only slightly true.

There are tracks throughout Life Without Sound that pummel as hard as anything in Cloud Nothings’ catalogue, with production quality that slays and unbridled aggression that captures much of what Cloud Nothings has become known for. Tracks like “Darkened Rings” or “Strange Year” carry much of the craziness of albums like Here and Nowhere Else.

In other words, this isn’t exactly the sort of record you’d want to meditate to.

That being said, there are new sounds on Life Without Sound. The band is more tuneful than ever before. The album opener, “Up to the Surface”, carries a piano in its intro and builds through a nearly pop-punk introduction. “Internal World” and “Enter Entirely” take their influence from bands like Weezer (and even some classic rock).

For Cloud Nothings, this is par for the course. Cloud Nothings’ trademark is our inability to know what an album is going to sound like upon release, and Life Without Sound is no different.

That’s not to say that Cloud Nothings is making music that sounds unlike themselves. They’re not making pop music, after all. But they’re embracing a method of songwriting that sounds less rushed and more tuneful. It’s a step in a new direction, but not necessarily a commercial one.

For the first time, Cloud Nothings just sounds optimistic.

Well, as optimistic as Cloud Nothings can sound.

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Near to the Wild Heart of Life isn’t like that.

It turns out Celebration Rock, one of my go-to records over the past half a decade, is a product of its time. Maybe it’s the Obama era, or simply a product of the band’s youth, but its fun-loving nature isn’t replicated on Near to the Wild Heart of Life.

Wild Heart sounds like the post-hangover record to Celebration Rock’s blissful joy. That’s not to say it’s a sad record — far from it, really. But it feels like Japandroids looked at Celebration Rock and decided they needed to grow up a little bit.

In some respects, the band sounds a little less energetic than before. “Mature” is an appropriate word, but it carries unfortunately negative connotations. The changes on Wild Heart are almost all for the better.

In many ways, songs like “North East South West” are among the best the band has made. It’s dynamic without losing its forward motion and energy. “True Love and a Free Life of Free Will” is a slow song, and it consequently speaks a totally different musical language than anything Japandroids made in the past. It’s a surprising direction for Japandroids to pursue after this many years of gun-blazing rock, but it’s a direction they’re surprisingly comfortable in.

You could call Celebration Rock a youthful record and Wild Heart an adult one, or at least a record influenced by adulthood. But that would be missing the big picture.

And the big picture is this: Japandroids use Near to the Wild Heart of Life as a transitionary record. They reflect on whether they’ve been, and carefully consider where they’d like to go. “In a Body Like a Grave” sees the band reflect on the hometowns they’re from, what they sacrificed to get where they are now, and what it feels like to look back even as they look forward. It ends the record on a high note, but leaves us wanting more.

There are energetic moments on Wild Heart reminiscent of the band’s past, but now Japandroids looks to those moments as sentimental throwbacks. But thankfully, in the process of diversifying their sound, Japandroids’ music has become more nuanced and subtle. They’re a better band, even if they’re a different one now.

Near to the Wild Heart of Life is less of a party. More of a thought. And as Japandroids shift from a celebration in 2012 to introspection in 2017, so too does the world.

Main photo by Leigh Righton.

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Thankfully, I was completely undersold. Dan Rico’s debut record is a bit of a grower, but it’s an album that demands your repeated attention. Endless Love is garage rock at its purest.

What stands out to me, more than anything else, is the way Rico bridges the gap between his pop influences and his 70s punk influences. Endless Love is filled with garage rock and lo-fi punk influences that make Dan Rico so much more than a Prince sound-alike.

In fact, comparing Rico to Prince feels wrong. Rico is mining some of the best sounds of the 70s — even elements of Endless Love’s production are very old-fashioned — but he’s writing music for the dopamine-driven A.D.D. generation. There are only three tracks on the record longer than three minutes, and the longest track is three minutes and five seconds long. The songs are more like staccato-style thoughts, delivered quickly and sincerely.

These quick songs are reminiscent of Rico’s punk influences. “Kinda Wanna”, which clocks in at a minute and forty-five seconds, or “Wasted Youth” (two minutes and fifty-one seconds) could be played at a skatepark. And it’s these tracks that, for me, are the most memorable on the record. They come in quick, short bursts, like excited proclamations and high energy capos to what came before. Some of these songs, like “On a Tear”, are so reminiscent of the slower Misfits stuff that I did a double take.

Not every track is blatantly punk or anything like that. There are plenty of in-between tracks, like “Endless Love” (the title track, obviously). It’s one of the best tracks on the record, but it’s not punk, and it’s not pop. It’s just this in-between old-school rock thing, delivered with Rico’s kind-of shrill voice.

Then there are tracks like “After All”, which do feel tremendously like pop music and lose the edge that Dan Rico otherwise has. The two styles are nearly jarring to hear side by side, and keep me from recommending Dan Rico for just anybody.

Because not everybody can get into Dan Rico. If it’s not clear, Endless Love is a hodgepodge serving a niche. But if you fall into the niche of people who miss ’70s rock, which I often do, you’ll likely find a soft spot for this glorious oddball in your heart. And in your vinyl collection.

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The music is ambitious and boundless, and & I’m Fine Today is SUSTO’s best crack at it yet. You can see the growth in album art alone: while their 2014 self-titled debut’s album art took a crack at Nirvana’s Nevermind, & I’m Fine Today embodies the psychedelic style of the 60s with album art that begs to be owned on vinyl.

& I’m Fine Today is a collection of fine songs, but it’s also a collection of fine stories. Many songs on the record stand out for their songwriting finesse, but almost every one is memorable because of the story they tell. “Gay in the South” tells an obvious story, but it’s one that encapsulates the record: one where Jesus isn’t the centre of somebody’s being, but rather somebody that haunts them.

“They promised us: ’You are going straight to tell when you die.’ I don’t even think it’s a real place,” Osborne sings on “Gay in the South”. On “Waves”, he asks: “Is there anybody in there, smoking weed with God?” On & I’m Fine Today, the questions Osborne asks aren’t strictly personal anymore. Now, SUSTO is asking the questions of their generation about the reality of a higher power — and whether or not that higher power is a benevolent force if its believers are not.

On the other hand, if philosophical questions about God isn’t your style, this is an album with a song called “Cosmic Cowboy” on it. So despite the life questions, there’s still space for some fun and games.

If the album has any central messaging, it’s earliest mention is in “Waves”. “The sun comes up, the sun goes down, and that’s what it’s all about,” Osborne sings in the chorus. And on “Jah Werx”, the final track, the band sings “Jah werx, and I’m fine today” throughout the chorus. When the lyrics come together, & I’m Fine Today is about God, nature, the rising and falling tides of waves as the sun rises and sets, and the way everything returns to dust when it’s over no matter what you believe.

Musically, & I’m Fine Today is a wonder. From the far-out style of “Far Out Feeling” (no pun intended) to the layered production of “Wasted Mind”, the songwriting and engineering are impeccable. But even more impressive is the storytelling of the record. & I’m Fine Today is a captivating, exhilarating record, and an astounding sophomore attempt from SUSTO that catapults them to the top of the league.

The post SUSTO: & I’m Fine Today appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

The big song on this record — the one they seem to think will bring Dodie a lot of attention — is “Sick of Losing Soulmates”, the final track on the EP. For me, I don’t think it’s the money track. It’s got a lot of emotional power, but it sacrifices charm for it.

And to be clear, at her best, Dodie oozes charm. “Intertwined”, the opening track, strongly reminds me of the French folk I’ve heard over the years. (I had to check to make sure it wasn’t a cover of a song I’ve heard before.) The music is familiar, but Dodie’s voice is perfect. Haunting, but filled with youth, Dodie sounds like she’s been performing for years. It’s so surprising that Intertwined is her first EP.

Much of the charm continues throughout the record. “I Have a Hole in My Tooth (And My Dentist Is Shut”) and “Life Lesson” are both under a minute long, but they’re perfect little breaks from the rest of the album and reminders that music doesn’t always have to be serious. And while Dodie spends her time largely meandering in a genre most people take much too seriously — folk — she never takes it seriously herself.

“Absolutely Smitten” takes that fun and makes a full track out of it. I love it. For my money, this is the song from the record they should play at the bars and the pubs. It reminds me of what The Lumineers were doing on their debut record, but Dodie is a much better singer.

For people who are getting tired of listening to the same old sad folk on a loop, Dodie is a refreshing breath of fresh air.

You know what’s great about Dodie? If you like her music, you can find her performing it all in her home on Youtube. She was a Youtube “sensation” before she got signed to a label. And that’s fantastic.

For fans of music, there’s nothing better than seeing somebody’s progression from relative unknown to a label, and then maybe, to success. With Dodie, there’s never been a better way to start tracking with somebody’s journey.

If you like Dodie, you’ll definitely want to search for her on Youtube.

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I’m on record as being a huge Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor fan, but it’s hard not to acknowledge that the group’s last few records have either been formulaic or, in the case of Ghosts, different to the point of being occasionally uncomfortable. While Not the Actual Events is sometimes predictable, it often has a brashness and urgency to it that Reznor hasn’t had in a long time.

A quick listen to the alternately pulsing and attacking “Branches / Bones” reveals Reznor at his peak. “The Idea of You” is reminiscent of the angriest moments of With Teeth, but it goes beyond that and reminds me of The Downward Spiral’s most furious moments. And finally, “Burning Bright (Field on Fire)” mixes Black Sabbath-style ferocity with the curious meandering of “Right Where It Belongs” to create something that truly embodies a modern Reznor-ian sound.

Now we just have to wait for the actual event.

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