Able Baker – Able Baker | Album Review

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Self-Released

Don’t you like it when rock music just fucking rocks? I love it when rock music just fucking rocks. That was the only thought in my head while watching Able Baker at Union Pool back in April. The entire time frontman Tim Anderson and his band played, I had the biggest smile on my face and turned to my friend multiple times to mouth “wow.” From the moment they opened with “All The Bars” into the absolutely massive tune “Steeper Stairs,” Able Baker held me in thrall with their perfect hooks and ecstatic guitar solos. 

I was at that show to see Sunshy, whose dreamy LP, I don’t care what comes next, has become one of my main comfort records. Sunshy indeed transported me with their swirls of guitar, but when I left, I was desperate to hear those Able Baker songs again. Now that Able Baker has finally dropped their self-titled LP, I can re-experience those highs and have come to realize how much more there is to the band than just pure ecstasy.  

Tim Anderson has been toiling away crafting songs as Able Baker since 2016’s “Play One on TV.” Anderson hadn’t yet developed the Elliott Smith-esque voice that defines how he sings now—gentle yet disarmingly candid—but you can hear the bones of what makes this batch of songs so exciting. 2021’s Spiral Bound Songs and subsequent singles saw him refine his craft with a close group of collaborators, namely producers Isaac deBroux-Slone and Logan Severson. Together, those two draw out the intimate details in Anderson’s songwriting while making the performances sound absolutely massive. And those performances, delivered by Sunshy members Gwen Giedeman, Jordan Zamansky, and Eric Breden, as well as notable contributions by guitarist Graham Hunt and cellist Chaepter Negro, are perfectly attuned to the songs they serve: loose, limber, and full of summery joy on the ragers, paranoid and ragged on the tracks that seethe.

Of the tracks Able Baker played back at Union Pool, the one that caught its hooks deepest into the folds of my brain was “In Your Town.” Why that one? Because it is a perfect piece of Weezer-y pop rock, the kind that hits you in the chest and reminds you, oh yeah, I have to breathe. The verses ride a bobbing guitar melody that briefly quiets as Anderson sings “something’s always the matter in your town” before the chorus hits you in the gut. As the band crescendos behind Anderson belting out the title, I dare you not to feel alive. 

Anderson is a master of crafting these exhilarating, Photo Album-era Death Cab for Cutie-like dynamics. He’s always subtly tweaking moments to achieve maximum impact. Where the first pre-chorus of “In Your Town” has the band building to Anderson’s repeated assertion, the second attempt gets only one run-through, and a guitar rips into the mix before he can even get out the word “town.” It doesn’t even sound like he gets more than the letter T out. He may, but you won’t hear it in the mix. It is a perfect moment of the music fully embodying the mood of the track. The guitar picks up where words fall short. 

“In Your Town” isn’t the only moment on Able Baker where the band pulls off these moments of perfect rock songcraft. Put the record on shuffle, and whichever song plays will be full of examples. “The Word” rushes through the verses to get to the choruses because what matters is the bridge into the final, wordless chorus. The band stretches out on the bridge, throwing in enough drum fills to last a lesser band's entire discography as the bass line locks into this sublime rhythm that makes me smile every time I hear it. Then when the chorus comes back, it’s somehow even bigger than before. “Secret Admirer” pulls the opposite trick. Anderson is a paranoid mess the whole song, singing “I would die if the secret got out.” The band rockets out of the second chorus with an epic guitar solo and pounding drums accentuating the thrill of being exposed, a section that must be building to something, but then it all collapses; there is no grand conclusion here. It is a moment of hope that gets crushed down. When the main riff comes back right at the end, quieter than it started the song, it is a moment of pure devastation. 

I didn’t get that devastation back in April. Only by running these tracks back have I reveled in how provocative they are. I wasn’t wrong in my initial assessment that “Steeper Stairs” is a massive tune, but now I’m lost in the yearning to reach through the mirror of memory alongside Anderson. It’s as if the recursive dialogue and images of Last Year at Marienbad were boiled into a rock song. 

I would like to retract my prior suggestion to shuffle the record, because Able Baker aren’t just good at structuring song dynamics. Able Baker is a perfectly sequenced record. They slot these softer, gentler songs like the acoustic filmic “Noir” and the hazy “Picture Pose” into the running order to give their distorted pop epics space to breathe. That’s not to say these songs only exist to break up the running order. “Picture Pose” rides a beautiful, dreamy vibe to transcendence as Anderson sings “you’re done with self love / it’s time to self destruct” while “Noir” references the titular film genre over a folky stunner.  

One of the great things about really good rock music is that no matter how hard I try to put into words what Able Baker makes me feel, I’ll never get across what exactly it is like to listen. So if you like really good rock music, the kind that really just fucking rocks, I can’t tell you to go listen to Able Baker enough. Please, go hear what it feels like. 

Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her Substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her on Insta @Lilllianmweber. 

MX LONELY – PERFECT HOUSE | EP Review

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Julia’s War Recordings

In Brooklyn, nestled off the Myrtle-Broadway stop of the M and J trains, lies Market Hotel, one of the borough's most iconic independent music venues. You can often spot its sweaty, condensation-stained windows from blocks away, thanks to the multi-colored strip lights that line each frame. Its history, much like the neighborhood itself, has evolved with the times. Originally a bank in the 1800s and a nightclub in the 1960s, the building found new life in the burgeoning Brooklyn music scene in the late 2000s. After shutting down in 2010 due to unsafe conditions imposed by the NYPD, the community came together to keep the lights on. After a painstaking series of renovations, the building reopened in 2015.

At first glance, one could see the venue as another casualty of New York’s capitalist expansion, shifting from a heralded “vibrant arts space in a dilapidated and slightly dangerous area” into a now memed-to-death poster child for the average Bushwickian transplant’s late night out. However, unlike many of the buildings that house these types of shows (especially the rare mainstays over in the neighboring, ever-sterile Williamsburg), Market Hotel has stayed true to its roots in the DIY scene, with the space just as likely to host a Tumblr dance night as it is to give flowers to a punk show.

This past February, I had the pleasure of watching MX LONELY headline Market Hotel in celebration of their then-just-released sophomore record, ALL MONSTERS. The group brought their friends in Shower Curtain, Bloodsports, and Wiring to round out the evening, bringing together four disparate branches of the New York scene for a well-rounded night of headbanging. 

What impressed me most about MX LONELY’s set, in particular, was how they commanded every inch of the room for a record that had been released maybe a week prior. Vocalist Rae Haas stood on (or hung off) every surface they could, while guitarist/vocalist Jake Harms slammed audiences with shrill, riffy guitar tones. Alongside them, Gabe Garman grooved on bass like his body movements were propelling the sound forward, and Andrew Rapp worked every inch of his arms to match the rhythm on the drums. It’s a triumph to see a band this beloved look so locked-in onstage.

Photo by Samuel Leon

At the beginning of their shows, Haas proclaims, “We’re MX LONELY, and we’ll be your exorcist for the evening.” This exorcism is twofold: a release for audience members desperate to shed the weight of the modern world, and a moment for the members of MX to channel their words as a communicative device. This relationship is clear: no matter what setting the group finds itself in, participants in this ritual-like cleanse give that energy back to the quartet in spades, whether it’s a call-and-response to the lyrics or kicking up a mosh pit at a moment’s notice. The strong NY community makes projects like PERFECT HOUSE feel less like a band rushing to pump something out and more like a love letter to the friends and collaborators that propelled them to these stages.

Where ALL MONSTERS takes a deep and sometimes-harrowing dive into the creation of monsters within the corners of one’s psyche, PERFECT HOUSE feels like the exorcism Haas talks about at the beginning of the live set. While the dark moments remain, the underlying feeling of an explosion begins to shine through, waiting to set the demons ablaze inside the house they live in, much like the blaze captured on the EP’s cover. This release grew out of a resurrection of demos from earlier in the band’s career, carefully layering new songwriting approaches onto the base of their previous work instead of simply recreating old material. Thanks to collaborations with Brooklyn singer-songwriter Caitlin Starr and Wiring guitarist Connor Gibson, along with Garman engineering the tones, the group created a world entirely of their own design. This unique approach of past, present, and future colliding into one project achieves a temporal harmony that invites collaboration without losing the essence of the magic the four members created in the first place.

Take the music video for “March 16th,” a black-and-white series of vignettes that captures dancing punks in matching outfits in an anonymous setting. The song’s universe feels like a communal celebration, highlighting the collaborative efforts that the band champions. From the dancing punks arriving via a casting call the band put out to Kaitlin Starr’s feature and local photographer/media extraordinaire Owen Lehman’s video work, the group assembles an all-star team from their community to make the song richer and more exciting. “March 16th” is also the track most directly linked to ALL MONSTERS, with similar crushing guitars and resonant cymbals found throughout that record. 

One of the more true-to-form callbacks to their former sound palettes, “Bird,” is an acoustic-crafted cut, save for some beautiful underscores of shimmering guitars towards the back end of the track. The song features a great display of Haas and Harms’ vocal dynamics, both shifting into their higher registers to create a memorable chorus. In many ways, “Bird” feels like the EP’s ideas in full form, creating an MX LONELY-type ambiance without feeling set in a specific period of the band’s history.

On the opposite end, “Twenty Seconds” feels like MX LONELY leaning further into their trademark gothic storytelling. Something eerie is at work in the track's sonic construction, with the initially ambiguous lyrics like “Twenty seconds under water / makes me want to stay longer” taking on a darker tone as more sinister guitar passages are added. The lyrics clearly mean something specific to the band, but that meaning is intentionally obscured, letting listeners fill in the blanks with their own horrors and unease. Judging from the clues left behind, the image might not look as pristine as some might believe. 

Finally, “Ex Rae Punk” shines as a well-crafted reinvention, thanks to a poignantly diaristic songwriting style complemented by bombastic execution. The play on words here is quite direct, with a former partner of Haas now referring to them as their “Ex Rae,” but the tragedy of the fallout is the realization that they never really saw Haas at all, hence lyrics such as “See right through you, see right through me.” This song has lived in the world since 2019, with its first iteration appearing on the now-defunct V0ID B0YS project, but it's reimagined here, giving the former acoustic track a newfound sense of purpose and reflection. Time may not heal all wounds, but it certainly gives new perspectives that can’t be seen in the heat of the moment.

MX LONELY is a band that gives themselves space to continuously reinvent their history, with PERFECT HOUSE inviting fans to experience the band’s creative process from the beginning to the present. Even if this is a smaller helping of work than their output earlier in the year, the level of detail and love for their work keeps the EP from being any less important to the story. It’s going to be fascinating to see what the next chapter of the journey is for MX LONELY. Make sure to go hard in the crowd the next time the band is in your town; you never know what demons need an exorcism.

By day, Samuel Leon shares factoids about contemporary art with members of the public. By night, Sam’s either cooking an orzo dish, watching a movie, or capturing New York performances with his camera. You can find his relic of a digital footprint at @sleonpics.

The Tubs – Hard Life | Album Review

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Merge Records

Owen Williams, frontman of Welsh jangle pop band The Tubs, is the crème de la crème of certified lover boys. He's the kind of moody, brooding bad boy you would see in a John Hughes film. We all know the type: long, slicked-back hair, well-dressed, and a penchant to be in their feelings. These are compelling character traits for someone who, in fact, wears his heart on his sleeve in his songs, constantly owning up to his mistakes and recognizing the endless cycles of his deteriorating relationships.

With each passing album, Williams is increasingly transparent with his feelings, willing to accept the blame for his own love life. What makes his writing stand out is his self-deprecation; Williams knows he’s a deeply flawed individual, accepts it, and isn't afraid to take the mick out of himself in his songs. The listener will find serious subject matter on these records, from his mother’s untimely death to picking up the pieces of your life in the aftermath and trying to find your place in the world. Still, the way Williams finds humor in all that life has to offer is gripping to listen to.

While the lyrics contain shades of grief, regret, shame, and disappointment all rolled into one, the music itself has the energy of a pint-chugging Friday night out at the pub. Alongside Williams is a full band of merry men backing him up, putting in full-time shifts at the office, headlined by Taylor Stewart on drums, Dan Lucas on guitar, and Max Warren on bass. Stewart is the rabble-rouser of the bunch; his kinetic drum fills and snare hits keep the tempo fast and energetic. It’s an engaging intermingling of moods, so when their record Cotton Crown came across my desk last year and reminded me of early-to-mid-80s R.E.M., the record was a shoo-in as one of my favorites of the year. As the band began touring America relentlessly, they found new momentum that helped them break into the mainstream, culminating in an article in the distinguished publication The New Yorker. 

That brings us to this year with The Tubs’ third LP, Hard Life; the album is grander in scale, beefing up the guitar bits, drum hits, and everything in between. Where we last left off with Williams on Cotton Crown, he was a man broken, dealing with the tragedy of his mother’s death and lost relationships, seemingly at his wit’s end, trying to put the pieces of his life together. Now on Hard Life, our hero has found some peace from within the catastrophes of life. After working through grief, Williams made it out with building blocks for his journey, ready to assemble himself back again from scratch.

This is not to say Williams didn’t learn some lessons from nights of debauchery along the way. Take the song “Heaven or London,” for example. It's the heaviest song on the record both lyrically and musically, with Williams questioning if there is enough room in heaven. This is him at his lowest point: bar hopping nightly, peering into an empty bottle to numb himself from the pain of losing his mother and cope with societal rejection. Musically, the guitars rev up, becoming more gnarly and vicious the further the song goes along as Williams croons his pain away. The title track, “Hard Life,” is filled with so much dark bar jargon that would make Sam Malone’s stomach turn. It’s a high-energy romp through different characters’ POVs about the hard times that people fall on. Whether someone’s dad dies, your boss is on your back, or you have no heat in your flat, the moral of the story is “Well mate, everybody knows / Yeah it’s a hard life.” 

Despite the dark undertones of Williams’ lyrics, he still keeps his sense of humor, flashing it at a moment’s notice like he’s George Costanza in a Seinfeld episode. “Do Yourself a Favor” drips with sass, sung from the perspective of being at your wit’s end with a lover. The chorus has attitude, and the vocal melodies will levitate in your mind. There’s an energy that persists, from the guitar tones to the synths, that reminds me of New Order, making for the best song on the record. A couple tracks later, “The Way It Goes” offers a love song with a Celtic twist and finds Williams in a Larry David-esque state of agitation at yet another Yank in America telling him they’re sober. On the closer, “As Long as You Leave,” Williams lends an ear to a friend to “whine about their scumbag dad” as long as they promise to leave his place afterward. 

There’s a real, cutting honesty to all of this, whether the band is recounting a specific interpersonal conflict or observing a perplexing societal norm. I see both “If You Don’t Love Me” and “Stoop to Me” as companion pieces that show what real-world relationships and growth look like as we get older. The former finds Williams’ heart in tatters as he pleads for love from a partner. He’s paralyzed by love (or lack thereof), threatening to quit the Tubs or even, god forbid, read someone’s Substack if she doesn’t take him back. The latter is Tubs at their jangliest, with Williams realizing that his love interest won’t take him back, so he learns to turn the page: “But baby if I can’t change your mind / Baby I don’t want to spend my life / Waiting for the day you see / The day you stoop me.”

On “Now and Then,” Williams is at his moody, brooding best, singing about writing lyrics in the dark all because a girl who has a hold on him has spurned his “little Welsh heart.” The croons on the chorus are so melodic and infectious, and it’s a marvel how Williams's silent suffering can lead to pop songs that are simply irresistible. 

On Hard Life, the Tubs have perfected their sound to the nines. How far they can push jangle pop is entirely up to them, because they’re at the forefront. Williams picked up the rubble of his life and came out of the wreckage a mentally stronger man. The Tubs turned the debris of pain into a bleary-eyed, nonstop rager of pop songs that are simply exquisite. 

David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He’s also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Otis Shanty – Shadow Of Doubt | Album Review

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Disposable America

The transition from summer to autumn is a holy ritual. As the early September warmth bows its head to cooler sunrises and the sun ploughs a lazier zenith across the dimming sky, I cherish this change, however brief it may be. Autumn is already such a short season, so I gladly search for hints of it even in late summer. The music I listen to at this time begins to shift as well – no longer does noisy, galvanized post-punk call my name, but instead I find myself leaning towards hazy, golden indie rock. The world is starting to slow down, and so do my listening habits. I want records that will help me savor those slow weather changes and dimly-lit afternoons. Otis Shanty is one such band: their delicate, shimmering brand of rock is perfect for watching the trees around my apartment turn from green to gold. 

The Boston-based quartet has been on an incredible streak of releases, from their first album, Suite 33, in 2021 and follow-up EP Early Birds in 2023 to their sophomore album, Up On The Hill, released in 2024. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Sadye Bobbette’s vocals are sweetly melancholic, weaving through the band’s gossamer sound like a bright thread, while guitarist Ryan DiLello’s precise, delicate playing keeps the songs whirling like spun sugar. Bassist Julian Snyder and drummer Jono Quinn skillfully anchor the group, keeping Otis Shanty tethered to earth with savory bass lines and crisply balanced percussion that never feels overpowering. I’ve been a fan of the band since I reviewed their single “Nobody’s Party” in 2024, instantly captivated by the earnest lyricism and ethereal build of the song. I’m happy to report that Otis Shanty has only gotten better over the past couple of years, as their new album, Shadow Of Doubt, has effortlessly proven.

I don’t know if it was intentional or just a stroke of luck and good timing, but I find that the themes discussed on Shadow Of Doubt perfectly suit the season in which it was released. I associate autumn with endings, transitions, and a thousand quiet slumbers as plants wither and animals prepare to hibernate. Throughout the album, Sadye sings about the changes and shifts that every human experiences in their relationships. Now that I’m a bit into my thirties, I feel that the past couple of years have been extremely telling in terms of the relationships that survived the past decade – and those that did not. Some friendships are more solid than ever, some faded like breath on cold glass, and others imploded on themselves, no matter what I did to try to save them. 

On Shadow Of Doubt, the band beautifully explores their own experiences with relationships, plunging into the deep end immediately with the opening track “Where to Look for Things.” A delicate, spinning guitar melody introduces the album as Sadye muses, “Everybody’s looking down / Sucked into self-doubt / Isn’t it funny how / We’re all looking for an out.” As the music progresses, the perspective of the lyrics begins to broaden. What starts as a very inhibited, narrow point of view turns into noticing “a twinkle in the pines” and then an encouragement to “stare in amazement at the sky.” I love how the music swells to match the words – the chord progression shifts, the hi-hat cymbal opens, and the band builds exuberantly as Sadye proclaims, “Let your mind surprise itself / Let your mind surprise itself!” It’s a joyous challenge to the listener, and with it, “Where to Look For Things” sets the bar high for the entire album. 

This theme of self-reflection is continued into the following track, “Ceiling,” trading the exuberant mood of the opening for a tone that’s more bittersweet. “Stripping a screw / And pulling it through / Is part of figuring it out” is the song’s first lyric, and those words hit my stomach like a cold swallow of water the first time I heard them. Few things are as frustrating as realizing you’ve ruined a screw while trying to build or fix something, and it’s even worse when you have to admit defeat and wrestle the offending screw out with pliers. The screw is thrown aside, no longer viable, and you’re faced with a gaping hole to fix. The clever metaphor used by Otis Shanty suggests a relationship that’s been stripped of the threads that used to hold it together, and no matter how much work was put in, all that resulted was an ugly hole where something beautiful used to be.

Full face to the ceiling
Waiting for the tears to fall back
In my eyes
Sinking gently
I’m sick of revealing
Everything about my insides
Like a ball of string
Down stairs unwinding
Down stairs unwinding 

The band continues to wind their way down a shimmering path on “Lowballer,” a dryly clever track pinpointing a particular type of artificial person. “Well those cowboy killers are gonna give you cancer,” sings Ryan, who trades lyrics with Sadye throughout the song. “And that camo hat’s not hiding the fact that you / You’re always looking for something new to get in front of,” they add. If I’ve seen one person like this, I’ve seen a hundred of them - a pack of Marlboros tucked in their front shirt pocket, vintage silver rings on every finger, aforementioned camo hat and Carhartt jacket perfectly distressed. It’s almost a meme at this point - in my mind, I think of it as a stereotyped Silver Lake aesthetic, but it speaks to a much larger cultural phenomenon than just an internet trend. 

So many people today want to fit a particular look in order to send a message about themselves without actually putting in the effort to develop their own interests, style, and taste. The sound of the music here alludes to this as well - it’s heavy and spacey, fitting exactly into the genres that are popular online right now. There’s a distinct shoegaze revival, often co-opted by these same aesthetic grifters, who once again lay claim to a genre of music they find “aesthetic.” Latching on to a particular style made popular by online trends is easy, because you can just buy all the pieces -cigarettes, jewelry, and workwear- from a specific brand. “They dress you up, and then they try to set you free / You’re a well-read sailor just floating around at sea / Looking for a white whale and a sense of meaning / Just a lowballer running down a dream.” There is niche upon niche online, but in the real world, you are still faced with yourself. At the end of the day - costume off, cigarette extinguished, and all alone - there is nothing but your reflection staring back at you. You can no longer avoid facing the eternal question: who am I? 

My favorite track sits precisely halfway through the album, “Echoes of a Blue Moon.” It’s melancholy yet cathartic, swirling forward like high tide. It discusses a very on-again, off-again relationship as Sadye asks, “Echoes of a blue moon / Only happen maybe once or twice / Makes you wonder / If it feels right / Why don’t we do it all the time?” This song shows off Otis Shanty's ability to lead into a chorus like no other, teasing a build through a short bridge, building again, then crashing into themselves at last in huge fuzzy waves of sound. This skill is what first drew me to them years ago, and because of that, my heart was overjoyed to hear the build in this song. “It’s you all the time / Reframing / One thing at a time to do, to do, to do, to do.” I close my eyes, letting the cool wash of music surround me. “Catch up, fall behind / Adhering / Like bugs in wine / It’s you, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” The bass and drums push the song forward, thrumming under the frenetic haze of vocals, guitar, and synth that float atop the ocean of this song. The ache and longing for someone you always want to come back to is expressed so well - the cyclical feeling is captured perfectly through the arpeggiated guitar licks and swelling synth effects. And just like that, the song is over as quickly as it began, abruptly dying out after three lush minutes. Coincidence? Probably not.

The latter half of the album starts with a mellower track, “Polished Stone.” It’s a pleasant breath after the intensity of “Echoes,” and settles into a comfortable sway as Sadye sings, “Fell out of alignment / Two voices on their own / Repurpose the garden / Beneath the overgrowth / Grind against each other / Till we make a polished stone.” I find this to be such a beautiful way to capture how it feels to work through difficulty with a loved one - whether between each other or side-by-side. Those who truly love you will always see challenges through with you - Sadye admits, “Turns out people in my life want to give me / The benefit of the fucking doubt.” This comforting song reminds us of the grace we hold for those we love. 

A couple of tracks later, the band’s perspective shifts inward: “For Once” is a beautiful exploration of self-worth and seeing yourself through the lens of someone who loves you. “I’m painting still lifes on the couch / I see the world in twisting arms around heads / You’re drawing portraits of my mouth / Can’t help but see myself the way you see me / And it’s good for once.” I was deeply touched by this song - not only is it poetic and tender, but it speaks to struggles I have dealt with personally through my entire life. My throat tightened as I heard Sadye ask, “What would it take for me to love my face / What would it take to love my legs to love my shape / It’s been a long time coming, it’s been a long time spent / What would it take? What would it take? What would it take?” I have struggled since I was very young to love my legs in particular, and I frequently hide them underneath jeans or dresses, self-conscious of their size and shape. But as I listened to Sadye repeat “What would it take?” over and over, their voice rising to almost a scream, I asked myself what would it take? But my question is answered: “I can try your eyes on / And love my face,” Sadye admits. I can try my husband’s eyes on and love my legs. I can see myself as more, and I can see myself as loved.

With Shadow Of Doubt, Otis Shanty offers the listener a moving exploration of the deeply complex relationships we have with others and with ourselves. The band is at their very best - lyrically precise, with every track awash in scintillating texture and depth. As I watch the earth participate once again in autumn’s solemn ritual, I have come back to this album again and again to bask in its light. Shadow Of Doubt is an incandescent bulb, haloed with warmth, healing the heart of the listener. 

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram @brittajoe.

Harrison Gordon – BLISS | Album Review

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Hopeless Records

Harrison Gordon (the band) nearly died on a California highway en route to Santa Cruz. The control arm of their van had been steadily grinding away at one of their tires, suddenly bringing the Normal, Illinois natives within inches of death. Writing purely in hypotheticals– Harrison Gordon (the man) does not appear to be all that deterred by the idea of dying a tragic, grotesque death. After all, monotonous transit rides often elicit passing thoughts about our own mortality: the way in which we’ll die, when it’ll happen, who will care when we’re gone, etc. After a recent brush with death of my own, I have often caught myself wondering what others would attempt to say about me at my funeral. It’s something I have wracked my brain over for the past year or so, to no avail.

It’s difficult to imagine that anyone would stand before my casket and wax poetic about how affable I was or how much I’d be missed. A similar perspective seems to be held by Harrison Gordon (the man), given that a majority of his lyrical content is “punching himself in the face” relentlessly. It’s sort of the crux of Harrison Gordon’s debut LP, The Yuppies are Winning, in which heinous rent and healthcare prices, hating yourself, and selling your childhood Wii for $30 are the overriding themes. Frankly, these are the band’s overriding themes, who, in classic Midwest emo fashion, built their wealth via DIY-nomics, with a little assistance from viral TikToks as well. Those self-loathing, politically charged lyrics are littered all throughout Yuppies. By the penultimate track, even Gordon himself has run out of ways to address the situation, resigning, “I want to stop talking about how much I hate myself, but I don't have anything else to say.” 

After a string of self-released music, Harrison Gordon (the band) has found themselves as newcomers to Hopeless Records, delivering their sophomore album, BLISS. Mastered by Grammy Award-winning producer and scene legend Will Yip, the 11-track, 30-ish minute LP finds the band more abrasive in tone, both musically and in terms of their self-deprecating lyrics. Album single, “Like Me Less,” holds the flag for this as, four seconds in, Gordon admits, “I think I went up another waist size / Convinced you like me now a little less” before a barrage of cymbals and down-tuned strings. The music video for this track, co-directed by Hot Mulligan’s Tades Sanville, depicts Gordon hesitantly signing away his rights in order to receive botched-ass plastic surgery in hopes of improving his already distorted self-image. Undeniably a heavy-handed metaphor for Gordon’s desperate lack of self-confidence, but a funny and twisted video for a song track that will have sweaty basements piling on top of each other as they grab for the mic.

Characterized by severe reclusion and distress, BLISS wears its theatrics on its sleeve. Opening track, “Weirdo,” sees Gordon justifying his lack of reaching out: “No one thinks the way that you do / No one else has thoughts so sad / And it makes you a fucking weirdo / To talk about yourself like that.” Harrison Gordon is no stranger to commenting on twisted social norms, especially the lack of a shoulder to cry on when attempting to confess your insecurities. It’s a harrowing truth that is hard to swallow; no one really cares about what you’re going through because everyone else is a little worse off. Additional suck-it-ups can be found on “Not Working! Not Working!” where Gordon’s disdain for the feckless, middle manager office drone shines through.

Production-wise, BLISS evolves the gritty, raw imperfection found throughout the rest of the band's catalog. The downtuned, chunky bass hits listeners like a pit in your stomach after being delivered bad news. Such gut punches can be heard on “Pretty,” which sees the band leaning heavily into their influences. Hefty traces of PUP, Prince Daddy & The Hyena, and Jeff Rosenstock are chewed on from start to finish of the LP. 

Photo by Chris Malchow 

Gordon has a knack for ungrandiose and relatable lyrics that hit just as hard as any traditionally ornate poet. Take, for instance, “Discard the garbage that you didn’t want / Pick at your old friends like scabs / Don’t have to treat me like royalty / But you don’t have to treat me like that” from the aptly titled “Scab,” which details the messy aftermath of a fractured friendship. A couple of songs later, the blisteringly fast “Middle Name” flies by listeners before they have the opportunity to digest: “I’ve known you way too long / To ask you ‘bout your middle name or how / You always notice when I cry / Even if I haven’t cried in days.” Gordon pens lyrics like street photography: mundane but immensely meaningful when pondered. 

If, in the five stages of grief, Yuppies served to represent depression, then BLISS surely depicts acceptance. Harrison Gordon’s first LP is littered with self-deprecating lyrics, fast guitars, and college regrets. Now, three years later, BLISS has all the same features; just drop-tuned some, crafted a bit more tightly, and with a narrator even more aware of his ineptitudes. The sophomore release also features Harrison Gordon as a full-band effort, whereas the first was essentially crafted as a solo venture, with Gordon tracking everything on his own. 

It’s on the crowd-surf-ready closing title track, “Bliss,” where Gordon delivers the following lines like repeated jabs to the face: 

I’ve learned happiness is something
You just have to strive for
Seems like such a chore
Bliss is good as I can get
Shallow as paper cuts
And hollowed out like bedsores
I want something more
But I don’t wanna chase it   

As seen above, Harrison Gordon’s honest-to-the-point-of-hurting perspective truly is what separates this band from their scene counterparts. This group consistently finds ways to inject their own style into rote emo conventions, creating a refreshing take on the genre’s sound. As Harrison Gordon put it himself: “Not slow enough for shoegaze. Not mathy enough for Midwest emo. Not fast enough for hardcore. Not catchy enough for pop-punk. And not smart enough for indie rock. Just 100% Gordon.” BLISS is the band absolutely crushing the infamous second-LP glass ceiling; they didn't simply copy and paste the formula that found them success with Yuppies; they clearly mulled over these 11 new tracks and delivered album-of-the-year-esque material. 

Maintaining a perpetual state of bliss sincerely eases the blow of the proximity of death. This is likely why Gordon so irreverently admitted that the band very nearly met their demise on the road. BLISS, as described by Harrison Gordon, is largely about the uncomplicated gratification of “pissing your life away” and the trepidation that comes with actually trying to get your shit together in a world that is consistently working against you. Gordon builds off of this sentiment: “I took stock of my life and realized it was passing me by.” The world as it stands is intended to beat the shit out of us until we’re too tired, anxious, and complacent to do anything about it. What BLISS appropriately conveys is that we’re not alone in destructively masking our modern anxieties. The question then becomes: what are you going to do about it?

Brandon Cortez is a coffee, football, and music nerd from Texas. He’s on Twitter @numetalrev.