Andy Shauf – Norm | Album Review

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ANTI‐

The power of discovering music in a record store is still as relevant today as it was before the turn of the millennium. Walking into your favorite local shop, hearing the staff picks on the speakers, and then buying the album on the spot. It’s something that just can’t be recreated by sharing a streaming link. That’s where my fandom of Andy Shauf began in 2020.

Masked up and existentially confused, the soothing tones of his release that year, The Neon Skyline, immediately stuck out to me. Sitting somewhere between the Scottish twee of Belle And Sebastian and the cabaret croons of the Burt Bacharach catalog, Shauf really showcased a singer-songwriter style I felt like I’d missed for many years. It was a heavy spin for me in the back half of the year, as was his 2021 follow-up Wilds that continued the story. Consider it the Mallrats to its predecessor’s Clerks; the same characters followed from different perspectives while introducing new ones.

Norm is Shauf’s eighth proper LP and is a wonderful way to kick off the year in music. From the beginning of the opener,  “Wasted On You,” longtime fans will be pleased that Andy is not deviating from his signature style; he continues to be one of the most recognizable voices Canadian indie rock has to offer lately. If you heard Father John Misty’s last album, Chloe And The Next 20th Century, and thought, “what would it be like if these songs were good?” Norm delivers that reality. It creates a soft-spoken world using elements of the orchestral pop and easy-listening landscapes of our grandparents’ generation. To appease all ages, those same elements shine under the ultra-clean production of the modern indie era.

The falsetto opening of “Telephone” comes in so strong I was certain he was bringing in a guest vocalist for a duet. Which, given the style of this record, would probably fit quite well. In turn, this is just Andy using his range as a strength, like Adrienne Lenker would on some of her most intimate material. Andy’s vocals are once again a standout throughout the LP, but it’s the way he uses them on top of the sparse, relaxed instrumentation that makes all his records captivating. Swooning through passionate lines such as “I would live on the telephone if I was listening to you talk about your day.”

“Norm,” the title track, is the perfect centerpiece. Calling the lead character by name for only the second time so far (the first being a subtle mention in the very last line of “You Didn’t See”), we learn he “lays on his side with heavy eyelids” and hears the voice of the narrator “lead[ing him] to the promised land.” If one thing is clear throughout the album, our hero Norm is straight up not having a good time.

On “Halloween Store,” Shauf delivers maybe his strongest stanza of the record. In describing Norm’s feelings on meeting one of the many persons of interest encountered, he “wondered if I locked the house, walked back and found that I hadn’t. But now my keys were in the car.” / “Pulled the handle, and it snapped back. At least I’d locked one door.” It’s clear the small victories for Norm are enough in some cases. Shauf’s almost talk-sing delivery makes it hard to fully take it in if you’re not listening with a close ear. It’s an intoxicating moment of insecurity.

If Norm invokes one thing, it’s tenderness. Like many of Shauf’s releases, his ability to effortlessly bring you into his orbit and immediately feel comfortable is continually impressive. For example, take the opening salvo of “Sunset” and “Daylight Dreaming,” a pair of songs whose sonic qualities live up to their titles. Shauf wields his words perfectly: “Just watching the sunset, and I’m letting you know just how long I’ve loved you for,” he pleads. On the latter, he sings, “All my daylight dreaming can’t get you on the phone, so send me strength to God Almighty.” The presence of a higher power is considered throughout the album, but maybe never accepted.

So the story ends as it begins, the 102-second closer “All Of My Love” taking its name from the chorus of track one. It gives the impression that the legend of Norm is endless, or maybe that the titular Norm’s romantic journey is. Shauf’s smart decision here to not only tie the last song to the first, in addition to making it brief, invites the listener to start it again. Flip the record back over. Hit the album repeat button on streaming. Imagine King Gizzard’s Nonagon Infinity, an album on a seemingly constant loop, albeit more French café than outer space in this instance.

I can also understand Shauf’s gift of quiet tone setting being a crutch for some listeners. If you’re not willing to be right there, ears to the words, you could miss the details. Norm is patience demanding but wildly fulfilling. If you enjoy the similar quirk of Jens Lekman, the character-driven library of The Mountain Goats, or the heartfelt delivery of late fellow Canadian legend Gord Downie, Andy Shauf’s Norm should be considered for your 2023 new release rotation.

Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

Twitter: @VERTICALCOFFIN
Instagram: @sleeps.with.angels

Hater's Delight – January 2023

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For a traditionally slow time of year, January has already been a whirlwind month of new music, announcements, and discourse. The return of boygenius, the promise of Wednesday, the long-awaited album from Fireworks. All of this and lots to look forward to in the coming months… but those are all good things, and we can’t be all positive all the time.

Enter Hater’s Delight, a micro-review column brought to you by Swim Into The Sound writers who want to vent about the things online and in music that have gotten under their skin over the past month. While I am a firm believer in love and positivity, even I admit that sometimes you just gotta let the Hater Energy out, and that’s exactly what this is.

If you want to catch up with a comprehensive playlist of all the new releases I liked this month, click here. If not, read on for the dregs of January. 

The Album Art for The National’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein

From the moment I saw the album art for First Two Pages of Frankenstein, I knew exactly what it reminded me of right away. It looked like the album art for every car commercial indie/alternative band of the 2010s. While The National haven’t always had the best album art, this one feels different. When I look at this album art, this could easily be the art for any of the following bands: Walk the Moon, Cold War Kids, Grouplove, American Authors, Cage the Elephant, Twenty One Pilots, Fitz and the Tantrums, X Ambassadors, lovelytheband, Passion Pit, American Authors, Young the Giant, The Temper Trap, The Naked And Famous, Miike Snow, Foster the People and so much more. Now, why does this album art remind me of all these bands? I can’t tell you. I’m not a graphic designer, and my attempts at art in the past I would consider to be failures. But you just know it when you see it, and God, do I see it in all its blinding glory.

Matty Monroe – @MonrovianPrince


Jack Antonoff’s Enemies

Dig this– an Instagram story showing Jack Antonoff and Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast sparked outrage on January 1st from “stans,” to which I can only respond: Let him cook. Antonoff has been working with your self-professed “favs” for years before he made one lackluster LP with Lorde. Melodrama is great. 1989 is great. Norman Fucking Rockwell, while not for me, is still Lana Del Rey’s best record beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hell, I’ll even go to bat for both Bleachers and fun. Both are great indie pop bands who produced multiple good records with generally slick production that retained indie (analog?) charm in ways Antonoff’s other, poppier work can’t or won’t. The man’s discography is longer and more star-studded than any seething 14-year-old’s Tweet history, so get off his back, capiche?

Mikey Montoni – @dumpsterbassist


Kim Petras ripping off SOPHIE

Earlier this month, Kim Petras posted a Tiktok of her showing Meghan Trainor a clip of her recent song, and many were quick to point out the resemblance between the audio Petras played and the sound textures of the late transgender music icon SOPHIE. It’s appalling when any artist is ripped off without credit, but this feels especially unjust and painful. I already was a Kim Petras hater for her defense of abuser Dr. Luke. And Meghan Trainor’s presence… bewildering, and frankly insulting. Hate hate hate to see it!

elizabeth handgun – @OneFeIISwoop


“Sad Girl” as a Subculture/Identifier/Genre Descriptor

If you listen to an artist whose thematic and sonic palette is as emotionally expansive as that of Mitski or Fiona Apple or any member of boygenius, and all you have to say about their work is “more music for the sad girlies to cry to 😭” you’re not really saying anything. It’s a regressive way to talk about music made by female artists (though the term isn’t entirely gender-exclusive– songwriters like Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, and Alex G are no strangers to the “sad girl starter pack” playlists that have swarmed your Spotify algorithm like a plague of locusts). In reality, “sad” tells us almost nothing about the music itself and only encompasses a tiny fraction of the vast emotional landscapes that these artists create. When you fail to engage with their art fully, you’re disrespecting the work of musicians you claim to care about AND cheating yourself out of a more enriching musical experience. Or, as Mitski herself put it in words far more succinct and less pretentious than mine, “sad girl is OVER!” So get over it. 

Grace Robins-Somerville – @grace_roso


Mosh or be Moshed: Hardcore vs. TikTok

Look, whether you’re on the outside or part of the scene, some elements of hardcore music are supremely stupid. Whether it’s standard pit karate, sitting on the stage mid-set, or literally hurling a TV at other patrons. The discourse of “don’t talk about hardcore if you’ve only been in it for a few years” is ridiculous. I met up with someone at FYA (Fuck Your Attitude, Tampa’s yearly kickoff of hardcore fests) who had only been into hardcore for a year and a half who told me this was his fifth(!) festival experience. So there’s no need to gatekeep. On the other side, if you’re a young internet person looking to comment on every subculture you refuse to research, you’re not helping either. As the new and not-quite-yet overdone Kevin Hart meme goes, take yo sensitive ass back to the B9 boards.

Logan Archer Mounts – @VERTICALCOFFIN


(Sped Up Version)

Hey pop artists? Stop it with the sped-up versions of your songs. I might risk sounding like an old fart, but I just don’t get it. This trend feels like the musical equivalent of those Family Guy Subway Surfer Stimulation TikToks. It feels like rapid consumerism combined with ADHD to bring our collective attention spans down to zero. I know they’re sometimes funny or fitting for a TikTok, but why someone would go out of their way to listen to a Chipmunk version of a pop song is beyond me. More ranting on this here. 

Taylor Grimes – @GeorgeTaylorG


Complaining About Your Favorite Artist Changing Their Sound

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes that “pigeonholing is something people need to do in order to feel that they have set the chaos of existence into some kind of reassuring order.” That’s all to say that I hate when people rip artists for experimenting with different sounds. I was a Fall Out Boy fan before their hiatus and have not connected with them since they reunited, but if someone enjoys whatever genre they’re trying on, kudos to them. Max Bemis of Say Anything was (understandably) all over the place throughout the band’s discography, but his art intrigues me regardless of whether I found it good or bad. Who knows how many times I’ll listen to the latest Fireworks album, but I’m glad that they are releasing music again, and I will listen to whatever they put out at least once just because their music has connected deeply with me already. If people enjoy listening to music so much, why are so many of us pigeonholing the artists that pleasantly surprise us with what they create? Expand your palettes, embrace change.

Joe Wasserman – @a_cuppajoe


Rick Rubin’s Production

When I was 15 years old, my favorite bands were System of a Down, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Weezer. I read Rolling Stone magazine and watched VH1’s I Love the 90s. I didn’t have any sort of high-speed internet, and would mostly use my dial-up connection to browse Wikipedia and read about the bands I loved. With this limited perspective, it was easy to think Rick Rubin was the greatest record producer who ever lived. And ya know, maybe he is the greatest record producer—if you are a 15-year-old boy. In a recent interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Rick Rubin stated, “I know nothing about music,”—31-year-old me is inclined to agree.
Russ Finn – @RussFinn


Show Photographers

The most annoying thing that has happened post-COVID lockdown has been an influx of concert "photographers."  These people decided to take up the hobby and, in turn, take up the entirety of the front row and even most of the stage during shows. Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad people are documenting shows and taking pictures and such, however, I am BEGGING all of you to learn how to use your flash appropriately. What really created this level of hatred and anger for me were two shows in particular; Portrayal of Guilt with Graf Orlock at Que Sera in Long Beach, and INFEST at 7CMC in Denver. The INFEST show makes sense, right? Like legends are playing a DIY space, you gotta take some pictures, but when you climb the PAs and take up stage space just so you can get your shots and don't even participate in the show, I feel like there's something lost there. Now the Que Sera show— that one was maddening. They didn't even need to turn the lights on because of the constant flashes from cameras during the entire show. In short, respect the concertgoers’ experience as well, and don't be a fucking tool just because you bought a film camera over the pandemic. 

Chris M – @sngs_abt_grls

Palette Knife – New Game+ | Album Review

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Take This to Heart Records

Palette Knife are an emo trio from Columbus, Ohio. If you don’t know what you’re getting into from that descriptor alone, there’s no better place to start than "Jelly Boi," the lead single off the band’s latest record. In one of the song's more open-hearted moments, lead singer Alec Licata belts out, “I don’t have sex anymore, I don’t feel sad anymore" at a near-scream. The lyrics shamelessly beacon out to emo/pop-punk fans sulking around corners of the internet and indicate the exact kind of confessional earnestness to expect from Palette Knife’s sophomore LP. The group draws clear influence from scene faithfuls such as Origami Angel, Commander Salamander, The Wonder Years, and Modern Baseball. The bits and pieces of these bands that Palette Knife used to craft New Game+ make for an extremely fun 35 minutes with seldom a boring moment.

While it may seem like the “I’m not sad anymore” era of pop-punk came and went with The Wonder Years’ conquering run in the scene, Palette Knife unearths this trope to kick off the LP in the previously mentioned track. The song slowly builds into a twinkle-led breakdown while detailing the need for Pabst Blue Ribbon and margaritas amidst a quarantine-fueled daze. The lyricism on New Game+ is quite straightforward, at times tongue-in-cheek, but works well within the context of the songs. The undemanding lyrics parallel the intricacies of Licata’s guitar playing, which knows exactly when to stand out in the mix. 

One of the most impressive aspects of the songwriting on this LP is the consistent shifting of song structures. Track three, “Avatar the Last Cakebender,” hesitates to jump into the chorus until almost two minutes into the track, which is pretty remarkable restraint compared to the average emo band. Details like these keep the listener invested in each segment of the album, with the whole thing being broken up by three short interludes, “Death Screen,” “Pause Screen,” and “Fog Gate.” Some of those tracks lean into the video game theme of the release with 16-bit soundscapes, while others experiment with spoken word. 

The songs following “Pause Screen” are some of the strongest on the album, “Weekend at Tony’s” starts with an extremely catchy and nostalgic intro riff followed by lyrics about cutting your hair in the summer and hating yourself. “Letters from Mom Town” features endearing guest vocals from Ceci Clark of Left Out, which provide a more mellow track at the midpoint of the album. “Damn, Son, Dim Sum” is the highlight of the album, and if there’s anything to take away from New Game+, it might be this track. Opening with tasteful and intricate guitar leads, the song uses D&D-themed lyrics to depict a friendship gone sour and had me coming back for more every listen. The track breaks down into a skramz-tinged apex towards the end of the song, capping off the powerful mid-section of the album. 

“Fog Gate” leads the final stretch of songs in which Licata strays from the overt lyricism found on the rest of the album. In this spoken word track, he gives listeners the least amount of context yet encapsulates the theme of New Game+ when he says, “…I sat in my car while I was trying to cry for reasons unknown to me. God damn, I have everything I wanted and more…” These wistful sentiments crescendo into the final act of the LP, as frustration over trivial things such as D&D and fundamental particles put what’s really important into perspective. The final songs mostly blend together, with the exception of the last track, “...And That’s a Rock Fact,” which squeezes in tribute to the Cartoon Network cult classic, Over the Garden Wall. Additionally, it caps the album off with triumphant instrumentation paired with playful lyricism about Adderall and velociraptor sweaters.

New Game+ touches on everything one could possibly want or expect from an emo album in 2023—sound bites, weed edibles, nerdy gamer shit, PBR, anime, Adderall, and regrettable decisions, all with twinkle breakdowns in between. Palette Knife marvelously crafts an emo album for emo fans by emo fans. They know never to take themselves too seriously while playing to their strengths, offering up enough noodles to keep Midwest emo fans plugged-in and plenty of catchy choruses to keep pop-punk fans not sad anymore.

Brandon Cortez is a writer/musician residing in El Paso, Texas, with his girlfriend and two cats. When not playing in shitty local emo bands, you can find him grinding Elden Ring on his second cup of cold brew. Hit him up on Twitter @numetalrev.

Tim Heidecker – High School | Album Review

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Tim Heidecker, still attempting to balance his livelihood as a comedian and prove his reputation as a musician, recently released a new concept album. High School is a compilation of autobiographical songs that tell the tales of classic missteps and boredom fueled by 80s suburbia. While the album offers little to no resolution, we are introduced to the characters of Heidecker’s world; the bands he listened to, the people he left behind, and the internal relationships fostered between himself and his understandings of politics, religion, and privilege. While other projects in vintage and modern music approach this concept better, perhaps there is something quaint and accessible about Heidecker’s world. It is hard to resist well-worn nostalgia, especially when accompanied by a warm musical arrangement. 

High School’s opening track, “Buddy,” finds Heidecker lamenting over a burnout friend from high school that he’s since lost touch with. Heidecker describes the friend as “gone” because he was the resident stoner. There is a desperateness to Tim’s inactivity as a character in this song – longing for things to work out for his friend but ultimately seeing him as a lost cause. This narrative choice is interesting, considering Heidecker has mentioned how he took psychedelics in high school. This isn’t a judgment on their activities, but rather an observation of the unfairness for Tim to position himself as a more aware person than his friend as if they were not partaking in the same coming-of-age activities. Heidecker unintentionally brandishes a naivety about why he was able to “escape” this lifestyle while his friend didn’t – never connecting the dots between his friend’s home life (“we turned it up, so you didn’t have to hear the yelling downstairs”) and his own (“Mom and Dad to hear me sing / they seemed to love it, they said it was great”). There is a privilege in not only having the means to escape your hometown and rebuke your identity as a teenager, but also having the support of parental guidance and untouched optimism. 

The fifth track, “I’ve Been Losing,” is where Heidecker begins to find his footing. His voice is his own, no longer hiding behind the impulse to slip into his Springsteen and Dylan impressions that get him guaranteed laughs on his call-in podcast Office Hours Live. His tone is sweet and wistful yet enveloped in an unavoidable melancholy. “Working myself up to the fact that my best days are behind me,” he sings in the third verse. This sentiment is common, not just as a punch in the gut for a performer, but as a symptom of the human condition. There is a real resignation in feeling that your peak has come and gone and that there’s no way to reach it, that you can’t go home again. However, my appreciation for this song is diminished by the outro, in which Heidecker sings, “Oh, I’ve been talking / talking too much / maybe I should stop and listen.” This is an ironic point of view for Heidecker to foster, considering the only other endeavor at the forefront of his current career is his podcast. Office Hours Live is fully funded by fan support through Patreon, though it operates under a Howard Stern-esque format, complete with interviews, listener call-ins, and a “comedic” bitterness that is appealing to a demographic that I don’t hold. In short, I don’t believe Heidecker is as self-effacing as he tries to be in this song, and the existence of his podcast is proof that he is more intentioned in finding a viewer to berate than listening and learning, or whatever he is trying to say at the end of this song. 

This leads me to ask: If this album is built on framing Heidecker’s adolescence from the perspective of his current adult self (mentions of regret, embarrassment, and longing are scattered throughout each track), then why isn’t there any redemption? It is reductive to focus entirely on the past without also building a bridge to the present and, perhaps in more proactive terms, the future. The crux of catharsis is not just unloading shame from your past but also uncovering the specific desire within oneself to transform or metamorphosize into an entirely new being. For the listener, there is little fulfillment in hearing a stranger wax nostalgic about the one who got away simply because it’s a story that’s been told (and lived) so many times before. It also provides a sense of tunnel vision to the album, which can limit one’s ability to find and apply universality to the sentiments Heidecker is singing about. 

The album bounces back and forth between a 90s alt-rock sound and light 70s country psychedelia. It also explores a wannabe 80s novelty song sound in the track “Sirens of Titan.” In my previous article, The Slow Cancellation of the Future: 70s Cosplay in Modern Pop Music, I detailed my disdain for artists' reliance on the aesthetics of 70s music and skewed cultural ideas. In that piece, I also mentioned how Heidecker’s previous album Fear of Death fell under the umbrella of liberally borrowing from 70s rocker influences and how those instincts tarnished my relationship with the album and made me question Heidecker’s motive for wanting a music career. In High School, he continues this trend, focusing his energy on name-dropping bands and musicians he found solace in. These references feel somewhat natural, albeit a bit stilted. It’s clear that Heidecker was mesmerized by the 60s & 70s era of classic rock staples as a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, but the references almost feel invasive, as if he is working very hard to cultivate a setting without describing anything at all. He is relying on the listener to use their own association and viewpoint of those bands to tap into their own nostalgia. This is a tool that can be implored intelligently, but it seems that Heidecker does it because he doesn’t have anything of depth to say or explore within his adolescence. 

In “Sirens of Titan,'' Heidecker reveals that he was a “little right-wing” and “fiscally conservative” until he “got that college degree.” As a long-time fan of his comedy, Heidecker declaring he became progressive or politically enlightened doesn’t feel honestly representative of his post-college work. In addition to this, I cannot recall an interview in which Heidecker has ever mentioned college as a useful experience either in terms of his filmmaking craft or his political awareness. I believe Heidecker’s insistence of his now-honed liberal politics is compensation for the insecurity of his childhood ignorance.

 However, in tracks like “Punch in The Gut,” it seems that Heidecker’s activism is still reserved to only pointing out what was wrong, rather than conjuring a hindsight that offers a revolutionary ardor. The song details Heidecker witnessing a schoolyard brawl that targeted “the kid with the different skin.” His point of action was to ask the priest to intervene, and when nothing was done, Heidecker resigned. This song, in particular, highlights the glaring issue with the pattern of lyrical content of this album – Tim doesn’t have any guts. He didn’t advocate for his burnt-out friend in “Buddy,” and he didn’t stand up or involve himself with the classmate who was being bullied to the point of physical harassment. To this day, Heidecker still possesses the same lack of conviction he had in his adolescence, which is why these songs often feel aimless. Speaking of listlessness, late album cut “What Did We Do With Our Time?” channels the height of suburbia angst with the lyrics “I’m a weed-wackin’, lawn-mowin’, leaf-blowin’, snow-shovelin’ boy.” Oh, the horrors of maintaining your environmentally damaging lawn!

I think the exploration of Heidecker’s adolescent cowardness wouldn’t be frustrating if he made any effort to disparage his past self or the environment that allowed him to operate with such passivity. Songs like these have a build-up that needs a release, but instead, Heidecker usually opts to repeat a verse or two until the runtime has reached a respectable length, slowly letting the fade take over. This style can be done; Lucy Dacus’ Home Video comes to mind, where in a few tracks, she invokes more of the timber in her voice and harshens her word choice while still keeping the ballad-like instrumentals. Lyrically, Conor Oberst’s “Next of Kin” manages to name-drop Lou Reed and Patti Smith without feeling shoehorned in. This is because Oberst uses the identities of those two performers to allude to a larger personal theme, stating that meeting them didn’t make him “feel different.” Oberst’s disillusionment with these transgressive icons of his youth correlates with a loss of innocence; his internalized anger didn’t serve his art or his character well. In this context, the output of “meeting” these figures acts as a coming of age moment that’s been prolonged or put off in some way, which is why it works as a binding point between Oberst’s allusions to the death of a relationship and the inability to perform on stage in the first half of the song. This is also why there’s an earned victory and a sense of finality that he found his ‘way back home’ in the closing verse. 

Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” from Born in the U.S.A is a masterclass in tapping into the generational angst that Heidecker is chasing throughout the runtime of High School. The song’s second line, “we learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school,” accomplishes what Heidecker’s trivia-esque namedrops attempt but with more emotional resonance. Springsteen does the work to communicate the impact he felt when listening to music, somehow being both vague and specific, which is done purposefully. He is evasive in the act of not naming the record or artist because he knows that won’t serve any value to the song; the descriptor would just serve as a personal easter egg, which can distract the audience from the focused message of the song. This snapshot is just a tool to drive Springsteen’s point further; it is intentional in his choice to describe the experience of listening to music while being young. To write that a record is more important and beneficial to him than school, we understand multiple things: his relationship to music, his relationship to school, and what he desired in his youth. Right away, listeners are able to place themselves in his shoes – it doesn’t matter if they necessarily find resonance in his ideals and objectives because he frames it as a story with himself as a key character. Throughout Born in the U.S.A, Springsteen muses about his youth, looking back and alternating between present and past tense. In “My Hometown,” he relays his disillusionment with what he was told when he was young (be proud of your hometown) to what he saw later (tensions between races in school and firearm-related incidents) and what he sees now as an adult (vacant stores, closed down textile mills). Not everything on the album is factual or speaks to Springsteen’s specific experiences, but its aim is to preserve and communicate the realities of feeling abandoned by youth. In contrast to this, Heidecker focuses on being confessional above all else. The interpretation of one’s own personal narratives can be a liberating act. However, in the context Heidecker presents, it is creatively stifling. His desire to remain honest in his experiences sacrifices the creative edits that could be made for the benefit of the song's story. Poetic license can and should be implemented if it functions better than the original encounter at illustrating the narrative hook or learned moral truth being communicated in the song. 

Elsewhere in the album, Heidecker alludes to the political turmoil within himself as a young person growing up towards the end of the Cold War era. This point in time was significant in that, to the conspiracist or critical-paranoid, everything was a sign. Pop culture was flooded with fear and fascination, but that didn’t prevent people from searching for answers in it. Culture was and is a tool that could influence the masses to conformity or a soft rebellion. My assumption of this is perhaps overly reliant on Pynchonian redux, but if Heidecker is willing to reference Vonnegut at the forefront of this album, even having merch that rips off the stylized 90s paperback covers of his books, perhaps it should’ve been the leeway for constructing the atmosphere of growing up in this portion of the Cold War era. Postmodern literature (a response to the dishonesty of the Cold War era) explores paranoia, which can be considered a close cousin to helplessness. I don’t know any other time I’ve felt more helpless than when I was in high school. And it is not only this, but also the idea that technology has its own itinerary. In the 80s and 90s, the idea of people becoming subservient to technology became relevant in the modern context – not just in literature, but in film, television, and music as well. I think this concept could’ve been easily implemented into Heidecker’s songs on High School, especially when his analysis of his youth intersects and overlaps with pop culture and the intrusion of media. He was using music and literature to find meaning because all he found in the real world was boredom. 

The album closer “Kern River” effectively achieves what Heidecker has struggled to do in previous tracks; it brought on veritable feelings of nostalgia and wistfulness. For whatever odd reason, whenever I am in a moment, I can sometimes feel myself yearning for the memory even though I am in it, creating it. I’ve always been plagued by a severe sense of sentimentality; I am someone who ruminates on the present as if it’s the past. This song is a snapshot of that experience. It is the culmination of the end of summer, especially if you live in a rural area where kayaking or tubing down a river is a common activity. As Tim sees it, the end of the river is the end of his childhood. Through these obscure, albeit trivial, landmarks, I can notice cracks appearing in the metaphorical shell of my adolescence. The ages of 14 through 18 are difficult because you experience everything with intensity. You have plenty of time and freedom to do what you want, while also noticing the days falling away with a quickness that is only fathomable to kids and to parents who have to watch their kids grow up. Every situation you face and every emotion you feel is magnified because it is the first time you are encountering them. It’s difficult, but somehow you still find yourself prioritizing your teenage years over the whole affair of adulthood. 

If “Kern River” is any indication of the heights that Heidecker is capable of reaching, then I am cautiously optimistic about his future endeavors in writing music. I can only hope that Heidecker forgoes the struggle of trying to legitimize himself as a musical performer and person of strong moral virtue and instead focuses on building fully-formed songs with complete emotional depth.

Kaycie is a freshman at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, where she is majoring in English. You can find her on Instagram at @boyishblues. 

Long Neck – Soft Animal | Album Review

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“Who told you you have to be good?” Long Neck frontwoman Lily Mastrodimos sings on album closer and Soft Animal title track, paraphrasing Mary Oliver’s 1986 poem Wild Geese. The record is nearing its end, and at this point, we get the sense that Mastrodimos has grown tired of being good. Or rather, she’s grown tired of having goodness dragged out of her by thankless, unforgiving circumstances, much like how she drags out the words “polite and gracious”-- to borrow from the late Ms. Oliver –“a hundred miles in the desert.”

Mastrodimos’s stripped-down 4th LP, composed mostly in Covid-induced solitude, marks a sonic return to her solo era before Long Neck’s sound had been filled out by a backing band. Even with occasional contributions from her collaborators, the absence of company is felt throughout Soft Animal. It’s an album that often sounds lonely, recalling long solo walks during the early days of quarantine, tentatively breathing in the air of the outside world while still feeling disconnected from everyone in it. This sonic emptiness is fitting thematically, as much of Soft Animal’s lyrical content deals with the struggles of isolation. It’s a reflection of the self-questioning spirals we go down when we’re left alone in our own heads for too long, as well as the difficulties of re-adjusting to social and professional life that follow those periods of reclusiveness. 

She begins the album by comparing herself to the minute-long opening track’s titular “Evergreen”-- strong, dependable, always in bloom, not because she necessarily wants to be, but because she feels like she has to be. The spacey, ominous production mimics the fogginess of someone who has overextended herself to her breaking point. The distorted background vocals and sample of a barely-discernible conversation between a mother and toddler give the track a disorienting feeling, not unlike sleep paralysis. Like much of the rest of the album, it feels transient and unsure, existing in an in-between space. 

Soft Animal’s ability to toe the line between the universal and the deeply personal is perhaps its greatest strength. Almost as soon as lockdown began, we were bombarded with co-opted “we’re all in this together” messages from celebrities and politicians whose lived experiences of pandemic life were worlds away from the average person’s (as well as empty promises and inaction from those in power). This Long Neck album recognizes that the grief is simultaneously all of ours (collectively) and each of ours (alone). Take the delicately fingerpicked “Cut & Burn” for example, in which Mastrodimos likens her isolation to “a cat run out to die,” sighing, “this is private, this is mine.” She presents this cycle of ups and downs– mostly downs –as a forest burning to the ground, growing back from the ash and decay, and burning down again. 

That’s the crux of Mastrodimos’ songwriting on Soft Animal– failing and starting over a million times, all while struggling to show herself the same kindness that she’s committed to showing others, whether or not it's returned. On piano ballad “The Headwaters,” she fruitlessly attempts to preserve an unequal relationship and in the process, sacrifices her own wellbeing for someone who doesn’t reciprocate her efforts. “What can I do to mean something to you?” she pleads, so clouded by her good intentions that she forgets to mean something to herself. 

Interpersonal relationships aren’t the only area of our narrator’s life in which she puts herself under immense pressure during extenuating circumstances. “If I can’t put a pen to paper, what good am I? / The calendar says April, but it’s May, June, and July,” she muses on “Ants,” having internalized the message that her self-worth must be directly correlated with her creative outlet, even in an ongoing global crisis. Especially during an ongoing global crisis. For artists and writers, the fear of emerging from quarantine having not finished our King Lear became an existential one. Who are we outside of our art? The harsh truth is that adversity doesn’t always equal creative motivation, and sometimes the things that make our lives harder don’t inspire our greatest work. There’s this idea that if we’re able to spin our suffering into great art, that suffering will somehow become meaningful and “worth it.” “Ants” grapples with this notion and occasionally falls for it, finally settling (sort of) on the resigned, open-ended line, “I guess that everybody is.” 

“558” is the cut that holds the most personal resonance for me, and if you spent any part of the last two years working in the service industry, I’m guessing you’ll feel similarly. It's a jarring departure from the bare-bones acoustic folk of the rest of the album, with its fuzzy electric guitars and discordant low-fi production mimicking the alienation of a tedious, mind-numbing job. It reminds me of the protective detachment I had to develop last year while working as a waitress, shutting my brain off for hours at a time and turning myself into a customer service robot. I pushed all the grief and fear down as customers pointed at my mask and said, “you know you don’t have to wear that anymore, right?” and on a couple occasions, told me I’d look prettier without it; as the two drunk girls at the end of the packed bar on a Monday night toasted “to Covid being over!” during August of last year; as an immunocompromised coworker got infected just weeks later, and our manager neglected to tell the rest of the staff that we’d been exposed. The first time I heard Mastrodimos snarl, “thank you for coming into work / wasn’t my choice to make,” I felt that same anger bubbling back up. Listening to “558” felt like stealing a few minutes in the walk-in fridge to cool down and indulge in my resentment toward rude customers and bosses who prioritize profit over safety before returning to dissociative, dehumanizing work with a smile on my (masked) face.

Other tracks on the album’s back half like “Gardener” and “Visitor” deal with recovery and rebuilding over quiet, sparse instrumentation that gradually grows into something grander, swelling at each song’s emotional peak. The former takes a more introspective approach, while the latter is more socially-inclined, depicting a reunion scene between acquaintances who haven’t seen each other in a long time and might not see each other for a while afterward. We see Mastrodimos momentarily healed by much-needed human connection, tenderly singing, “there’s no one on earth I wanna know more than you.” She caps off this campfire sing-along country ballad with a bittersweet farewell– “not goodbye but see you soon.”

“Soft Animal” closes out the album of the same name, serving as the thesis statement that Mastrodimos has been slowly building up to. Her dissection of the album’s central questions– “Who do you love? / How do you love them? / What do you want? / How do you show it?” --feels reminiscent of Mitski’s subversive 2014 ballad “I Will,” which Mitski has said is not a love song for someone else, but a series of reassurances that she herself would want a lover to say to her. In a similar vein, “Soft Animal” sees Mastrodimos finally putting herself first for once after a record’s worth of self-neglect. In learning to extend her forgiving nature and generosity to her own needs, she ends up letting go of some resentment towards both herself and others. Mastrodimos’ strength does not come from rejecting her vulnerability and gentleness but rather from directing it inwards and using it to care for herself the way she’s used to caring for those around her. By the time the key change hits and the band begins to play us out, she’s ready to fly with the wild geese into the harsh and exciting unknown.

Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at @grace_roso.