Spencer Radcliffe – Ohio Vision
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Orindal Records
Spencer Radcliffe has been kicking around for a hot minute. The Toledo-based rocker first popped up on my radar a full decade ago with Looking In, a certified Bandcamp classic that I discovered through Run For Cover Records back when I would check out anything and everything the label helped release. By 2022, Radcliffe was touring with the soon-to-be-ascendant MJ Lenderman when the two were only filling out 100-cap rooms and joined at the hip by a sort of proclivity toward a similar lo-fi alternative americana sound.
The music Spencer made was often sturdy and straightforward. The titles tended to be single words, and the instrumentals would jangle forward with a sort of Matthew Sweet-like flawlessness. The tracks could bend lo-fi in a charming, self-recorded type of way, but even when they came out a little scratchy, would still be imbued with the sort of undeniable energy that comes part and parcel with a power pop approach to songwriting.
After a few releases under the name “Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else” that expanded the backing band, Ohio Vision was surprise released this November on Orindal Records, the label of Owen Ashworth that put out some of the first releases from Friendship, Wednesday, and the aforementioned MJ Lenderman.
Ohio Vision opens with a compelling plod on “Shield and Sword,” where Radcliffe admits he’s simply borrowing from the songs that are “hammered in his brain” before interpolating the Modest Mouse classic “The World at Large.” Things really open up on “Daily Driver,” an immediately accessible Automotive Song that feels like a pure distillation of the appeal of rock music: it’s catchy, simple, makes you feel good, and practically begs you to sing along from behind the wheel of your car.
Elsewhere, the six-minute “Dumbfounded” builds to a beautiful smoulder of a guitar solo that has the power to devastate if you treat it too carelessly. “Took a Hit” deploys similar guitar heroics, opening with a minute straight of mood-setting noodling before falling into a rugged classic rock riff that ultimately serves as a launch pad for another killer solo.
There are lovey-dovey detours like “Constantly,” an ode to someone “sweeter than gas station iced tea” that finds Radcliffe proposing “let’s pretend we live in a world where they never invented the phone” and “talking real close to one another till we run out of things to say.” It’s a beautiful portrait and a lovely little devotion buried in the middle of the record. This is contrasted with “The Menace,” a silly palette cleanser that strikes me as a bit Ween-esque in the best way. There’s also “The Same,” an off-kilter stab at monotony that brings a light chiptune edge to the proceedings before the jazzy send-off of a closing track.
Accompanying Ohio Vision is Live and Die Ohio Music, a feature-length documentary following a run of East Coast shows Radcliffe played with Horse Jumper of Love in November of last year. I haven’t ventured into the movie yet, but it sounds like the doc offers a nice peek behind the curtain of these songs and Radcliffe’s process.
In the end, Ohio Vision offers a simple proposition: 40-some-odd minutes of hearty rock and roll straight from the heartland. These ten tracks all go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from the others that surround them, making for an awesome, low-stakes listen with the possibility to connect to something more profound, depending on what you might need.
