Pretty Rude – Ripe | Album Review
/
SideOneDummy
There was an album that someone once described to me as so dense that the best way to understand it was if you were standing with the artist on the same corner of the same street on the same summer afternoon they were thinking about making the songs. An album so dense in layers of sound, lyrical twists, personal secrets, musical callbacks, and outra-artistic references that it would reveal more of itself with every listen, constantly morphing into a clearer picture. While I didn't agree with this assessment for that particular album, I think it perfectly describes Pretty Rude's debut album, Ripe.
If you find yourself digging through the digital indie rock crates, you're likely to encounter the name James Palko at some point. Palko is one of the most sonically recognizable producers of the 2020s, enveloping his work in rich sounds and big production. He’s culpable for the yacht rock bliss of Jimmy Montague, the muscular bark and wayward bite of Taking Meds, and the full sensory overload of one of emo’s most under-appreciated projects, Perspective, a Lovely Hand to Hold.
The latter two bands ended somewhat abruptly, with Palko caught in the spin-out. The sudden change – a life built around writing, recording, and touring turning into a life without these reliable fixtures – led Palko to focus on Pretty Rude with longtime bandmate and epic drummer Matt Cook. Chronologically, Pretty Rude has been kicking around since 2021 when the group released a self-titled EP, but was mostly dormant until last summer when Palko re-shared the EP on the otherwise empty Pretty Rude Twitter account. Someone in the comments of the post asked what this meant, and Palko responded: “the ‘taking this seriously’ era has arrived.” And arrived it has. Now, Pretty Rude is back and more dialed in than ever for their debut album, offering an eight-song ripper that injects pure, electric power pop into well-loved Moby Dick references.
The album begins on an inhale—a final deep breath of feedback, sharp static, and a steady thrum that builds and builds before bursting into the exhale. “The Caller” is symphonic in its sound, swapping the whine of a violin for the hum of an electric guitar. The near-cacophony then begins to make room for the swing of Palko’s voice, alternating between his regular singing voice, his falsetto, and a choir. While his voice remains even, pointedly so, the song builds and falls, climbing around the bend of a competing electric guitar. Aside from Palko's voice, element that makes Ripe different from any other power pop indie rock record in 2025 is the band's use of a choir. In “The Caller,” this choir hums around the edges, adding an almost sinister depth to the song.
One song later on “Things I Do,” the choir provides a secondary dialogue that questions Palko’s thoughts and plans by repeatedly asking, “Why do you?” Overall, “Things I Do” kicks ass, plain and simple. The song harkens back to rock’s most theatrical impulses with a tambourine ringing over Palko’s words, a hand hammering away at a keyboard, and Cook’s drums shuffling a groovy beat. But Pretty Rude are tricksters, not content to let any song move forward as expected. Halfway through, the track flips a switch, teasing a full breakdown before resurfacing into a hair metal bridge.
There’s a palpable attitude that exudes from Pretty Rude, I mean, it’s in the name, they’re not only rude — they’re pretty rude. Sure, they never outright snarl at the listener, there’s an eye roll or a middle finger in there, but mostly directed at themselves. This likely originates from the man at the helm because Palko doesn’t mince words, ever. From the withering directness of Perspective to the shotgun combativeness of Taking Meds to the ever-incisive plea of Jimmy Montague, “don’t fuck me on this,” Palko picks projects that frustrate.
Frustration is all over Ripe. After “Things I Do,” the album shifts into its final single, “Call Me, Ishmael,” a grungy track with an agitated bass line and even more agitated music video. It’s critical to mention that Palko has a strong visual eye and directed several music videos for this album, including one for “Call Me, Ishmael.” The video harkens back to the 00s days of sell-out culture and satirizing big music labels. In the video, a cartoonish record label executive swaps the band’s instruments for cooler ones, the band’s clothes for stylish ones, and eventually the members themselves for what Palko called “Hot Guys Of The Future,” aka labelmates Stoph Colasanto and Tommy Eckerson from Carpool. The tongue-in-cheek video makes Pretty Rude’s anxieties about committing themselves to music laughable right up until the end. It reminded me of that one Sum 41 video, but instead of getting Deryck Whibley’s lesson that record labels suck and being true to yourself rocks, the “Call Me, Ishmael” video finishes on a sour note — the hot guys take over the band and Pretty Rude are kicked out.
Despite all the disillusionment, Pretty Rude find the time to soften everything with humor. In “The Work,” Palko reflects, “I should have been an athlete, I should have been a jock,” his rumination continues, wistfully imagining life as a finance bro and an actor. He ends with a pouty, “I’m a wreck when the work’s all gone, I’m just a mess, no fun.” In “Call Me, Ishmael,” Palko contemplates grifting himself, and in “Polish Deli,” he imagines seeing the rest of his life while waiting in line, the choir returning to monologue his inner thoughts. Between the funny videos and the project's sarcastic lyrics, Pretty Rude capture a vast emotional landscape, beating the listener to a self-deprecating joke before they even consider it. The jokes give way to honesty and insecurity in a way bluntness can’t capture. In other words, the humor of the project, like the Randy Newmans and Frank Zappas before them, protects its emotional depth.
But it’s not all laughs, “Unconfidence Man” (which, granted, is a funny phrase) opens with almost a straight minute of a razor-sharp electric guitar, alternating between the song’s earworm riff and a hard guitar chug, all one degree away from blowing out my speakers. This is one of two songs off Ripe that reference Moby Dick, the first being “Call Me, Ishmael.” Palko’s literary lyrics are central to Pretty Rude’s resounding cleverness, and his words are never inauthentic; rather, they’re crucial to the band, the conclusions of someone truly moved by literature using his interpretations of classic stories and characters to explain himself.
The literary references continue into “Debbie & Lynn.” Sonically, the song leans Weezerian, but like if Rivers Cuomo wasn’t a twerp with a fanbase that drives Cybertrucks and was instead, you know, a cool guy with a Twitter account. It’s a total power pop ride, kicking off with a whispered intro before Cook kicks in his dance beat. The song delves darker and deeper as Palko chants “No vacation” before soaring back into a guitar solo, like a diving plane pulling up before a crash. The song gets its name from Billy Collins’ poem “Traveling Alone,” which Collins describes as a work about “moving through a world of strangers,” a subject that seems to thematically match Palko’s continued processing of a new artistic life. Like “Call Me, Ishmael,” I would be remiss not to bring up the music video, which imagines two new flight attendants (Debbie and Lynn) and a drunken pilot, played by Palko, getting ready for work.
The album ends with “No Moment,” a raw reflection on Pretty Rude’s career in music. In Palko’s words, “[No Moment] is all about how if this is how it ends, then nothing really came of it. Like, am I ready to be done with what I was doing? I was feeling a little bit chewed up and spat out by being in bands for the better part of the last two decades.” Pretty Rude is earnest in its honesty, even if the honesty is harsh. Despite these thoughts, and to have never had a “moment” in music, I’m glad Palko is still trying out new projects. I honestly don’t know where really cool rock and roll would be without him right now.
Every listen of Ripe reveals more and more, getting bolder and smarter with every replay; it even recommended me a poem. Each song has a new sleight of hand in its production that you didn’t notice before, and each lyric has a different meaning you didn’t consider on the last listen. Pretty Rude walks a constant maximalist line, fascinated with seeing just how much they can pack in. I feel like I’m on the street corner with them. Most importantly, I’ve never been more inspired to finally read Moby Dick.
Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.
