Combat – Stay Golden | Album Review

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Counter Intuitive Records

Somewhere in the back of Ottobar, I was sipping a drink with Deep Eddy's grapefruit vodka as I turned to answer my friend's question. He had tagged along with me to see Prince Daddy & the Hyena's summer tour and was asking about the local opener. The star-studded lineup included saturdays at your place, Riley!, and Carpool, but my friend was most curious about the first band on the list – Combat. I think I yelled something along the lines of “best band in Baltimore right now,” or “you wouldn’t believe their new single,” or “they’re probably going to bring the building down,” but was cut off because, at that moment, Combat crashed onto the stage. The air in the room that hung with pre-show humidity suddenly buzzed with electricity as we braced for what was coming. Within seconds of the first chord, the whole crowd was moving. 

I was really bad at physics in school, so don't quiz me on anything else, but I remember that the law of conservation of energy says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can change form. I’m pretty sure that Combat’s sophomore album, Stay Golden, is sonic proof of that. Throughout the concept record, Combat bounces between speed and resonating impact, often at the turn of a lyric. Ultimately, the live wire sound keeps the momentum of the album at a thrashing high energy while the lyrics delve into insecurities, secrets, memories, and an ever-evolving outlook on the very album you’re listening to. Through meta self-analysis and music so emotive it feels impossible to capture, Combat’s latest is a legend in the making. 

After a brief piano intro, a sample from Spider-Man: Homecoming sets the tone, playing off the band’s name as a robotic Jennifer Connelly asks, “Would you like me to engage Enhanced Combat Mode?” to which an emphatic Peter Parker responds, “Enhanced Combat Mode? Yeah!” Seconds later, the band rips into the jingly cacophony of the titular “Stay Golden." which tears out in a thrash of whirlwind pop-punk. Before we get any further, I feel the need to explain the physical impact of this song. When I saw Combat in July, this song, the album’s first single, had only been out for a couple of weeks. It was received with rave reviews, appearances in 5x5 Friday grids, and apt comparisons to the wild and raucous sound of Bomb the Music Industry! But then I saw it live, and as much as I’ve tried to rework this sentence, it is impossible to describe the ferocity the band threw into this song and how much the crowd threw right back. I mean, the whole pit knew the words within a handful of days and was scrambling over each other to scream “Hey Holden!” back to the lyric’s namesake, frontman Holden Wolf. That split second pretty much explained the frenzy that Ottobar had turned into. Luckily, it’s immortalized on video here (and yes! That is the album's producer, Origami Angel's Ryland Heagy filling in on guitar, and yes! That is a Riley! cameo).

The whole album is a sprint from there. After being drop-kicked by the title track, “Faith” feels like being punted through the air, continuing the more meta side of the album as Wolf describes writing the song you’re listening to. “Put Me In, Coach” feels like falling but never hitting the ground and keeps up the impossible breakneck speed of the album’s introductory tracks. While a brick is on the gas pedal, the jaded side of the album’s lyrical themes are put into overdrive as Wolf sardonically asks, “Do I make you lots of money?”

This stretch of songs feels like someone who doesn’t know they have telekinesis on the brink of discovering their powers by accidentally exploding their room. It’s building and building and building. This cartoon tornado of energy spirals into the aptly titled “Full Speed Ahead,” a song that climbs like you’re on a broken elevator with a cord pulling you up and then dropping you in a way that makes everything that came before it somehow feel slower by comparison. Wolf yells with such a strain in his voice that it feels like the band is using everything they have left, and it’s only the fifth song. 

After furious cymbal crashes and guitars that ricochet against each other, the front half of the album crescendos into the first 8-minute powerhouse, “Weird Ending Explained Pt. 1.” It’s chaotic. It’s a breather. It’s chilling. It’s miserable. It’s apologetic. It’s bitten. It bites back. The song is self-confident and self-referential, feeling like this album’s answer to 2022’s Text Me When You Get Back. “Weird Ending Pt. 1” gives the listener an abridged history of Combat thus far, closing a chapter mid-album while also showing the band’s cards and revealing the direction they’re taking now. The song weaves and winds, pulling together past musical motifs and forgotten chords from their catalog while the lyrics pile on top of each other, working into a building panic. The momentum picks back up when suddenly Wolf flips and describes the unending process of writing another album, jokes about using leitmotifs, and bemoans trying to stay golden despite it all. Honestly, it makes me feel silly to write that they used something like leitmotifs and recurring lyrics —  as if I walked directly into a trap. It’s yet another crack in the fourth wall of the album, a jab at what the song just did. As it slows and fades out, Combat is left standing in a kind of panopticon of their own making as they decide between expectations for the band, their future, and the audience.

From there, the album pumps the brakes, but only slightly. The blistering momentum cools down into longer songs and slower deliveries, but that doesn’t mean the raging is over. Guitars duke it out on the Prince Daddy-ish “Happy Again” and “Compound Sentences” feels like the fast-food-obsessed spiritual successor to Origami Angel’s "24 Hr Drive-Thru," but with a bit of twang thrown into the mix. Between those two songs, “Merrow Lanes” builds traction back up, using Magic the Gathering as a flexible metaphor for poking and prodding at something until it reaches perfection. To exemplify this, Wolf declares he’s “on the way to idealized far destinations” but “stuck on a freight train to Loserville.” The whole song ultimately turns against the notion of vapidly improving yourself as it repeats the cloying phrasing “you’re gonna have to do better,” mocking those who deal such flat advice while the music turns into a stampede that is sure to take the floor out of any venue they play this in. 

The energy of the final tracks oscillates between kinetic and potential. “Epic Season Finale” is a sort of pseudo-closer, pulling the self-depreciation, want, and meta sides of the album's lyrics to more forgiving heights. It soars up and sits in the same blue sky as the cover. It’s a buddy comedy of a song. Amongst the concept album framework, it has almost a final scene quality, an epic season finale if you will, one with forgotten conflict, accepted confessions, big smiles, and forever friendships.

The promised second part of “Weird Ending Explained Pt. 1” arrives to close out the album. Of the nine minutes that make up “Weird Ending Explained Pt. 2,” the first two are purely instrumental, a sturdy bass line holding it all together until the crash. If “Epic Season Finale” was the final scene, this would be the montage that plays over the credits. Much like its mid-album twin, “Weird Ending Explained Pt. 2” revisits prior melodies and themes but focuses on Stay Golden instead of prior Combat projects, all while staring directly through the hole in the 4th wall. With these meta devices in place, this song also continues to offer new perspectives on the album you're listening to as you're listening to it. One of the most jarring comes when Wolf amends "Faith," circling back to the complications of writing this particular album:

It's just getting harder
To try to get it through your skull
Sounding out your vowels and consonants
Barely make out compound sentences
George never played the upright bass
Was just a line to fill out space
With impersonal, infactual, and total witty quips.

These lyrics turn the entire album on its head, a simple glimpse at how many details and references are packed into its 40-minute runtime. The album begs to be replayed immediately, and it’s not even over yet. The quick admittance leads into the final few minutes of the song as it jumps from a fast-stepping melody into a wrenching wail, into a trumpet-laced dirge, into a last-ditch bouncy refrain, and into slowing violins that loop into the first track. 

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but on Stay Golden, it’s entirely infinite, and this is clearly only the beginning. Back at Ottobar in July, Combat’s set ended in the same frenzy it started, with constant collisions spiraling around the room and out into the crowd. But all kinetic energy eventually has to shift back into potential; the next band must go on, we need to find the owner of whoever lost a shoe in the pit, and I need to grab a beer before the next set. 

Caro Alt’s (she/her) favorite thing in the world is probably collecting CDs. Caro is from New Orleans, Louisiana and spends her time not sorting her CD collection even though she really, really needs to.

Self Defense Family – Try Me | Album Retrospective

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Deathwish Inc.

“Children are gonna be pissed by this, but… yelling ‘all the dumb cunts they get what they want’ for a long time… it’s hard for me to even listen to.”

“It should thrill you!”

When people say “band X or album Y” changed their life, it’s easy to be skeptical. Not because it’s impossible to believe that a piece of music could do that, but it is a lofty claim that gets thrown around so much that it’s become its own meme. I’m sure the critical-yet-charismatic Patrick Kindlon would dislike me saying so, but Self Defense Family’s 2014 album Try Me is one of those life-changing albums for me. The album celebrated its tenth anniversary back in January, and it felt crucial for me to look back on it, given the indisputable impact it had on my 18-year-old brain.

A brief history: Self Defense Family was once called End Of A Year and first formed under that name in New York in 2003. That first iteration of the band released one demo, three albums, and a prolific amount of EPs and singles starting in 2004. In 2011, they briefly rebranded as the verbose “End Of A Year Self Defense Family” before finally landing on just Self Defense Family before the year was over. This change, alongside finding a new home at legendary punk label Deathwish Inc., re-established the band as a somewhat unclassifiable alternative outfit amongst a sea of emo and post-hardcore bands of the time. To me, they are the perfect kind of musical combo: their influences are heavily worn on their sleeves (Nick Cave, Lungfish, and Silkworm, to name a few), but they don’t sound exactly like any of them, nor any of their contemporaries. The same could be said for the doom-metallic-hardcore quintet Twitching Tongues or the ever-evolving, all-angles-of-punk rockers Ceremony. 

Since becoming more “popular” (as popular as an intentionally anachronistic band can be), Self Defense has garnered a cultish, deeply devoted following, and it’s very easy to fall deep into that hole. Vocalist and lyricist Patrick Kindlon is the only constant member, joining up with a rotating cast of regulars and one-off players whenever they’re available. Because of this, the group is ripe with side projects and associated acts; Kindlon himself is perhaps even better known for Drug Church than he is for Self Defense these days, and other members have been a part of bands like Aficionado, Militarie Gun, and PONY. 

My first exposure to Kindlon was at a Drug Church show in October 2013, opening for now-defunct New Jersey emo duo Dads. They played just four songs, and the other half of the set was filled with prolonged, involved stage banter from Kindlon. I was impressionable, on the verge of a melodramatic high school breakup, and desperately seeking something against the grain that spoke to my sensibilities. That Drug Church set delivered precisely what I needed, and after diving into their music throughout the following weeks, I discovered Self Defense. At this time, they were about four months shy from the release date of their full-length debut under their new name, and I couldn’t wait to hear it.

A wonderful surprise hit just before the turn of the year when Try Me began streaming early ahead of its physical street date. It’s one of a handful of times I remember exactly the experience of hearing an album for the first time. Alone over winter break, late at night in my bedroom at my mom’s old house, taking in a collection of songs that was absolutely unlike any I’d heard before. Everything about Try Me to someone who doesn’t know the roots sounds insane, from the lo-fi production to Kindlon’s signature bark-speak vocal delivery and the repetitive nature of both. It’s also a record that caused me to Google search unfamiliar lexicon, starting with album opener and catalog hit “Tithe Pig.” I was freshly eighteen and had no fucking idea what a “tithe pig” was, or what “tithe” was for that matter. Then, there’s the second track, “Nail House Music,” where Kindlon spins multiple variations of its core lyric: “I found you in the witch elm. Who put you in the witch elm? What man dares to put his hands to me?” Again, I go, what the fuck is “the witch elm?”

On a laundry list of things I didn’t know prior to hearing this album for the first time is the album’s conceptual star, Angelique Bernstein, known publicly as Jeanna Fine. Much of the lyrics on Try Me are inspired by interviews Kindlon conducted with the former adult film actress, which are included in two 20-minute segments on the album, simply titled “Angelique One” and “Angelique Two.” Depending on whether you have the CD, streaming, or vinyl version of Try Me, these interviews appear at different moments in the tracklisting. The digital versions have them interspersed, the first after the initial five songs and the second after the final four songs. The vinyl is a double album, with one disc worth of songs and one disc worth of interviews, each disc housed in die-cut sleeves featuring high-quality pin-up portraits of Fine. 

Most of the time, I prefer the vinyl listening experience, but that’s only because nothing will match up to the very first time I listened to the album, having no idea what to expect with these pieces. I knew nothing about the album’s concept before listening, so when “Angelique One” began and I saw its runtime, I thought I was in for some post-progressive Mars Volta type shit (speaking of bands I spent a lot of time Google searching terms from). What I got was the first half of a captivating and emotional peek into a sordid life at the end of the 20th century, cutting and traumatic, bold and vulnerable.

A good time is often not the resonating feeling on a Self Defense release, whether Kindlon is singing about his own life or someone else’s. Try Me’s first single was “Turn The Fan On,” a dark lament that would probably be buried on the B-side for any other group. In a fan-filmed performance from Poland, Kindlon describes the song as simply “a bummer.” It’s an extremely tough song lyrically; the raw details are unclear, and the tone is truly unsettling: “A patch of grass outside the clinic. His wife’s at home, she’s gone ballistic. He places lips to palm, he starts crying. Finger to temple, he’s sobbing.” “Apport Birds” is about Kindlon’s dog dying, an unfortunate feeling many of us know, and he spares no grim notion about it. “It’s not like you to go without me. It must be lonely there without me. I understand the pull of religion when there’s a loss that won’t stop itching.” One song earlier, “Mistress Appears At Funeral,” which features lead vocals by frequent Self Defense collaborator Caroline Corrigan, reveals the details of an affair in humanity’s most inopportune setting. “Dressed in black, I’m ready for mourning. Show ample thigh to keep it sporty.” / “I kneel at my man, I take my time. Estate is theirs, but this is mine. Wife looks up, she finally sees unpleasant mirror, the miserable me.”

When Kindlon’s feelings aren’t masked in metaphors, they come directly and without interpretation. “Fear Of Poverty In Old Age” is the album’s prime example of this: “Feel dumb once, feel dumb again. Ring finger cut off your left hand. Ugly lisp, frustrated stammer. Wrong time again,” and the blunt chorus, “partnership is security, promise me.” The most “punk” that Try Me gets, a term Kindlon actively resents, is the 10-minute closer “Dingo Fence.” It’s a simple anthem: “Do you live nearby? Let’s go to your place now. All the dumb cocks, they get what they want. All the dumb cunts, they get what they want. All the dumb cops, they get what they want. If you’re happy, I’m happy.” Kindlon’s voice strains over the track’s duration by the end, where it culminates in a quiet coda. If basement krautrock was a subgenre, it’s Self Defense’s bag and only their bag to occupy.

The influence of Try Me on my life, my way of thinking, and my way of absorbing music cannot be overstated. It gave me a sense of identity when I had none to latch onto. It felt like Self Defense was my little secret band that only I understood after years of feeling alienated from my closest friends at the time. I actually convinced my high school journalism teacher to let me review it for the newspaper the month it was released. I went back to the same venue I saw Drug Church at just months before to see Self Defense perform with Pity Sex. I skipped my last day of Senior year to get in my friend’s band’s touring van to Bled Fest in Howell, Michigan, so I could see Self Defense again, and began the arduous process of collecting every piece of vinyl End Of A Year and Self Defense Family ever released (yes, I completed the mission). It was a fun challenge finding ways to explain to my family that “avant-garde spoken word hardcore” was my new favorite genre. 

Self Defense’s band activity has been a bit less frequent since Drug Church’s popularity has risen, and admittedly, some of the newer, singles-based SDF material doesn’t strike the same chord with me as their mid-2010s output. But that will never change how Self Defense affected me in more ways than one, and revisiting Try Me ten years later, it still has the same chokehold on me. Even as I typed out lyrics here that I’ve had memorized for a decade, or gave a close re-relisten to the emotionally gripping interview segments, or played the record at home that I’ve heard across four different turntables in six different bedrooms, Try Me remains a one-of-a-kind album that should be essential listening for those yearning for something new in their musical rotation. In Kindlon’s own words, the final three of Try Me’s liner notes: “Enjoy or don’t.”

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.

Ben Seretan – Allora | Album Review

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Tiny Engines

I’ve gotten really into meditation this year. It’s become one of those habits that has gone beyond performative. Instead, meditation has become a practice that makes me feel better and supports my neverending human endeavor to grow in warmth, beauty, and happiness.

Ben Seretan’s Allora has also been instrumental in my spiritual development. Through its lens of a ripping, anthemic indie rock album, I find myself selfishly excited to meditate on its drone. Every song basks in the overdriven tube warmth of a guitar amp. Plucked strings and shredding leads guide listeners to Seretan’s gospel about resilience and love. A congregation of bassist Nico Hedley and drummer Dan Knishkowy backs Seretan to form a kind of garage band trinity. 

At over eight minutes, album opener “New Air” introduces his thesis as Seretan repeats, “We breathe new air for the first time.” The single is grounded by a driving bassline and groove that ascends into an explosive solo, awash in crashing cymbals and tremolo picking. Given the track’s length and droning structure, the song begs listeners to give in, let go, and enjoy the moment. In that trance, though, there is respite and rebirth, as Seretan and co. offer dynamics that allow for breathing room, processing, and gratitude. Long songs are always a risk, especially as first tracks, but despite that inherent challenge, Seretan sets the bar high right out of the gate.

If “New Air” is a meditation on rebirth, “Bend” is a sobering reflection on the compounding nature of one’s past. The lyrics-cum-poetry are memories:

flowers on the road
bending toward the sun
I will follow slowly
you were almost free
I could hear you singing
for the last time.

These flashes of imagery push Seretan to the edge with an emotional weight that is exhumed through his climatically delivered refrain: “Bending with the weight of it / what I want could fill the world up / I will bend, not break.” Similarly to how Dan “Soupy” Campbell of The Wonder Years encouraged a younger me to push through depression and apathy with the war cry “I’m not sad anymore,” Seretan encourages me now to be flexible in the face of adversity, tragedy, and grief. 

“Free” is the eight-minute tails to the head of “New Air.” Mostly instrumental and darker in tone, the track is plain and clear in a desire for liberation: “Were it that I was free / ah, free.” Although Allora is not without conflict, “Free” is the most obvious and direct. There is love and resilience and joy, but some shackles still remain. Even then, though, Seretan remains grateful on the closer, “Every Morning Is A,” where he sings, “Every morning is a / glory hallelujah.” The final song is simply those lyrics and Seretan’s now familiar guitar noodling over an organ pad. Reverbed up to heaven, you’d swear you were in a church yourself.

A skeptic myself, I had some unwelcome flashbacks to being in church in elementary and high school. In spite of the emotions that accompanied those memories, Ben Seretan’s Allora left me peaceful, hopeful, and surprisingly grateful to carry my weight because it is mine, and I will not break under it.

Brooklyn native Joe Wasserman moonlights as an English teacher when he’s not playing bass in the LVP. Find more of his writing on Substack.

Otis Shanty – Nobody’s Party | Single Review

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Relief Map Records

“We’re here!”

I felt the old Land Cruiser lurch to a stop as my friend yanked the parking brake, which was more of a gesture of faith than a safety measure. The slow, heavy car slipped out of gear at least once a month, parking brake or not. I sighed and carefully opened the door, easing myself into the cool summer evening. I could hear laughter and loud music pouring through the golden windows of the house we’d trundled through miles of scrubby pines to reach. “There’s a party on Friday,” my friend had told me. “You should come. We’ll take the tank.” 

The driveway seemed a hundred feet long, though my friend was already nearly to the house, battered Docs kicking gravel ahead of them. I scurried to catch up, breathlessly fumbling for my earbuds in my jacket pocket. Shoving one into my ear, I pressed play on the latest single from a band I had recently discovered. Warmth flowed through the earbud like honey melting into hot tea. We were almost to the door.

My mind flashed back to the drive over. “What do I talk about?” I had asked my friend as we rumbled and bumped down narrow country roads. Their eyes darted over to me, then back to the road. 

“Music, probably.” They slowed to avoid a pothole but hit it anyway, adding, “Maybe that new band you’ve been into? Otis Shanty?” 

My head hit the roof as we plowed through another pothole. I hesitated. “Okay.” 

~

Boston indie rockers Otis Shanty make music that is sweet and hazy, laced with melodies that cling to your mind like smoke to your clothes. The group has two EPs and an album already under their belt, and with the forthcoming release of their sophomore album, Up On The Hill, through Relief Map Records, the future is bright for the four-piece. According to the band, while their new album has “a connection to the Early Birds EP, there is also an expansion both sonically and lyrically.” Today, we’re treated to a fresh taste of the album with “Nobody’s Party,” following up the group’s previous single “Why Do I Care?” which dropped on July 16th. 

Tackling the uncomfortable subject of social dynamics, “Nobody’s Party” perfectly conveys the confusing and overwhelming feelings that so often accompany going out. Parties and gatherings become a balancing act - am I talking too much? Was that cringe? Am I being friendly enough? The band thoughtfully commented on the concept of connection at parties:

“I don’t think that the notion of a party in the U.S. makes room for authentic connection around core values, which is what I often crave. Parties are so often a physical manifestation of the desire for social capital: we dress up, drink, and shmooze to feel a part of something. But sometimes, the anticipation, awkwardness, hangover, and embarrassment aren’t worth it. I don’t want to trade authenticity for social capital, but at the same time, I don’t always pursue my genuine thoughts and desires out of fear of being misunderstood. Ultimately, it’s a struggle with confidence that is hard to break out of.”

For myself, I generally feel drowned out in social settings, often taking the backseat as a listener rather than vying for the spotlight. I tend to worry about how I am perceived in these settings, not from a desire for others’ approval but rather from the fear that I will present myself inauthentically. Small talk is painful, sure, but who among us is willing to open up about their hopes, dreams, and fears to a stranger in their living room? (Especially when you’re struggling to be heard over whoever is blasting Pop Goes Punk through a tinny Bluetooth speaker.)

“Nobody’s Party” earnestly captures this paradox of feeling - sweet guitars wrap the listener in a warm embrace, an oddly comforting contrast against the raw lyricism. The mix on this song is beautifully done - the bass drives the nostalgic chords while the guitars and vocals float above it like mist. The drums are delicately balanced above the entire thing like a copper mobile, dancing with light. The song hits heavy from the very beginning - in the opening lyrics, vocalist Sadye Bobbette describes the inner turmoil of going through the motions at yet another party: 

Same old crowd here
Spinning the same old conversation
Sometimes I choke on a sentence
Oh, seconds away from losing my tongue on the floor
Seconds away from losing my mind 

Putting on a smiling facade while forcing down the lump in your throat is an act of emotional bravado that seems impossible to maintain. But is the comfort offered with honesty worth the pain of vulnerability? At the peak of the song, Sadye repeats my favorite line over and over as she is echoed by her own voice. “Anything will fly with the roof detached, anything will fly with the roof detached.” Distant shimmering gang vocals press the chorus to a cathartic high, and tears sting my eyes as the band crashes around me like a wave. “I don’t do what is best / When it’s hidden in plain sight / So I stay one more minute / For the last time of tonight.”

~

I slipped through the kitchen door to the back porch. “Man, it was loud in there,” I mumbled to myself, hands once again searching for the security of my single earbud. I leaned against the rough wooden siding of the house and watched as the stars emerged above me, pin-pricks against the velvet of the infinite void beyond. My friend’s laugh erupted from the kitchen like a firework, bigger than all the rest, though it did not demand attention. I often wished I were more like them: more confident, more easy-going, more ready to laugh.

I had the same Otis Shanty song on a loop - “Nobody’s Party.” I figured it made sense for the evening, and I was fixated on it anyway. I closed my eyes as the song swirled around me, purple and orange phosphenes dancing briefly against my eyelids as I hummed along. “I don’t do what is best / When it’s hidden in plain sight / So I stay one more minute / For the last time, for the last time.” My throat was thick with tears as I heard the door open, but I didn’t open my eyes to look over. There was no need.

My friend settled against the house beside me, lighting a wilted cigarette. We stood under the heavy swath of night for a few moments before I heard them clear their throat. I braced myself for the question I thought was coming.

“What are you afraid of?”

My eyes blinked open as I looked at my friend in surprise. They were staring at me intently, the cigarette glowing like a lighthouse as I covertly wiped my eyes. Taking a shaky breath, I put my earbuds in my pocket and answered.

Across the yard, the Land Cruiser slipped out of gear.

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 and Twitter @brittajoes.

Oso Oso – life till bones | Album Review

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Yunahon Entertainment LLC

Oso Oso maestro Jade Liliti has spent the better part of a decade establishing himself as the purveyor of emo’s sunniest, most indelible hooks. The Hotelier’s Christian Holden–a longtime friend and tourmate–once compared him to Winnie the Pooh, so it’s a little jarring when his fifth record under the Oso Oso moniker begins with the bleak admission, “I love you but life is a gun.” That first song, “many ways,” is the kind of intro that Lilitri has never quite attempted before; it’s plaintive and embryonic, crackling with auxiliary piano and swells of feedback, segueing neatly into the jaunty “the country club.” A quick spoiler: the gun never goes off, but by the time lead single “all of my love” rolls around, it’s in possession of a woman named Annie, and she’s pointing it directly at him. I wouldn’t blame you if you were too busy grinning ear to ear at the Rembrandts-style handclaps to notice that the lyrics are actually about falling OUT of love; the ebullient chorus soothed Lilitri’s dog, too.

life till bones was never going to be a particularly cheery affair. Looming over the album’s ten tracks is the death of Tavish Maloney, Lilitri’s blood cousin, musical collaborator, and closest friend. He passed shortly after working with Lilitri on the tracking of sore thumb, which was subsequently released largely untouched, a monument to their lifelong friendship, frozen in amber. The songs on that record were freewheeling and often silly, soaked through with LSD and lined with weird experimental flourishes; brilliant but scattershot. With a few more years in the rearview, life till bones hones in on the aftermath.

The cavernous absence is most starkly addressed on the bloodletting “seesaw,” where Lilitri ruminates on the reality of losing a loved one. It’s a difficult listen, almost like a confessional we should not be privy to. The final refrain, wherein Lilitri cleverly splices the title in two, lays bare the aimlessness of moving forward: “The seesaw I saw balance in me / Now that balance is gone, I don’t know what I see.” A couple songs earlier, the more upbeat “stoke” takes a slightly more resolute path, striving to “try to find a way / to keep all that at bay.” Lilitri may be coughing up smoke but the flame is “stoked” and, given his predilection for stoner-patois, I’m inclined to read it as a double entendre; the fire isn’t merely alive, it’s excited. Our memories of the deceased can be painful but also inspiring, even invigorating; reminders of how to live as they lived and keep their best qualities alive with us.

So, where do we go from here? What do we do when forced to carry on after losing everything we hold dear? Lilitri would seem to argue that we pour love out into the universe, unyieldingly. To return to that radiant “all of my love” chorus, the relationship in that song dissolves because he “can’t give you all of [his] love,” the implication being that anything less than that would be a waste. In the Oso Oso vernacular, love has always been the ultimate force, the “one sick plan” to save Lilitri from his own demise. But life till bones is the most clearly he’s articulated the corollary: there is no half measure. Anything short of total, life-altering, starry-eyed devotion simply won’t do. On the shout-along “other people’s stories,” he mourns failed romance and refuses to settle until he can find something comparable: “I can’t fall in love if it’s not with you / Cause other people’s stories got me feeling bored.” When that true, transcendent love is attained, it’s almost a benevolent funhouse mirror that lets Lilitri see his best self in the eyes of another. Or, said another way on the buoyant “skippy,” “I like when I’m with you I make the good choice instead.”  

While life till bones might not be the most sonically ambitious Oso Oso album, it is certainly the most focused, almost iterative in its Frankenstein-style synthesis of Lilitri’s work to date. He nicks the snare-driven stomping groove from “dig” and speeds it up for “stoke”; he tactfully deploys sore thumb’s piano flourishes; he’s back singing of Annies and disasters around the bend; he upcycles an old demo into a beachy reverie. Often, when a songwriter’s repeated tics are visible enough to be articulated, it means they are spinning their wheels, but this is moreso the work of a master craftsman, a generational tunesmith confident enough to mine his own back catalog for inspiration. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this laser-focus is in service of some of the sharpest pop he’s ever penned, 29 straight minutes of minivan window-primed radio rock. Two of the songs were released in advance as singles, but for my money, there are easily five more that would have fit the bill.

The album takes its title from a line in the closer: “Look at all the people, looking at their phones / With how much time left? Life till bones.” It’s a pretty head-on confrontation of mortality, hidden at the end of a B-Side largely devoted to fawning love songs, and it’s indicative of what Lilitri does best. His phrases breeze by perfectly clipped, and the fleeting melancholy registers like an in-joke, a passing thought to be acknowledged but not dwelled on. Then—much like life, one might say–the album is over almost too soon. One day, we will all be reduced to bones. But it’s a funny thing about skeletons; when all the living flesh decays, they always look a bit like they’re smiling.

Jason Sloan is a guy from Brooklyn by way of Long Island. He posts mediocre jokes on Twitter and can be found occasionally rambling on his blog Tributary.