Quick Hits, Vol. 311 (Soccer Mommy, Muse, Reigning Sound, Good Looks)

Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever.  The more I listen to this album, the more crushed I feel that I had to give away my tickets to the show in December.  Such a wonderful sounding disc.  Has some harder-edged rock and roll bits, but a lot of really pretty, atmospheric indie rock songs that I love to come back to again and again.  Although, I will admit that "Unholy Affliction," the third song, is a weird and unnerving swerve in the beginning of the album.  Comes on like a taut Nine Inch Nails thing that opens up a little bit, but it still slams the breaks on the vibe right before the hit song, which is weird. But the hot single is the one that was put out a good ways before the album, which I previously wrote about here because the chorus has an annoyingly incorrect reference to gun ammunition.  "Shotgun," with 5.6 million streams.

Yeah, ice cream and alcohol is all we really need.  True dat.  Really enjoyable tune.  Feels fresh even as it probably copies ninety other songs.  "Don't Ask Me" has a Madchester vibe that I dig - very fresh sound.  "With U" starts out like a 90's Radiohead tune.  Nothing on here strikes me quite like "circle the drain" from the last disc, but I really like this album.

Muse - Will of the People.  Just a terrible album.  I have liked some Muse songs in the past, and there is a slice of me that finds pleasure in the hardcore sound of "Won't Stand Down" - makes me think of late 90's Nu-Metal thrash.  But overall, this is really not good.  The title track sounds like they couldn't remember the lyrics to Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People."  "Compliance" sounds like a Holiday Inn cover band playing a lost song from the Flash Gordon soundtrack, where one member of the band refuses to stop playing the Night Rider theme music in every song they play together, and sooner or later the guitarist is going to murder him in a Denny's parking lot.  "Liberation" sounds like they wish they were Queen.  "You Make Me Feel Like Its Halloween" is on some Disney channel-ass bullshit.  it is almost amazing how the album just continues to suck throughout.  "Kill or Be Killed" is another Breaking Benjamin-ass lite-thrash track.  Just dumb.  The top track is that "Won't Stand Down" thrasher.  You're welcome.  37.9 million streams.

Welp, now I've seen whatever that is supposed to be.  Weirdos.  Do you hear that little xylophone bit at the start that kind of steals from A-Ha?  I do.  And it bugs me.  But I'll readily admit that those power chords combined with the pounding drums in the chorus get my inner 18 year old boy excited.  I really hope they aren't a headliner for ACL this year.

Reigning Sound - Time Bomb High School.  This is like if Ryan Adams was making garage rock with the Replacements.  It's also 21 years old, so I have zero clue how this ended up in my new music queue, but I had definitely never heard of it before.  The opener is a kind of uninteresting and lo-fi cover, which is a weird move, but after that this gets to be really good.  "Brown Paper Sack" sounds like the charging R&B freakout of Nathaniel Rateliff.  "You're Not As Pretty" or "Wait and See" or "I Don't Know How to Tell You" are a little more Ryan Adams fronting countrified Wilco.  Either way, it is a great mix of burning rockers and quiet barroom laments and it should have been more popular when it came out.  Unfortunately, the opening track has the most streams (which seems like it would turn people off to the rest of the album in many instances), so I'll give you second place instead.  "Straight Shooter" with 320k streams.

Singer sounds like Bono on the Rattle & Hum album at the start of the tune.  But, like I said, this is a good ol' bashing rock song that sounds borne out of a midwestern garage.  Good stuff.  Worthy of repeat listens.

Good Looks - Bummer Year.  Just a fantastic album.  These guys were a late addition to the ACL poster last year, although I didn't get to see them play because they were weekend two only.  But this album freaking crushes it - good rock and roll, great lyricism, just top-notch stuff.  And their backstory was interesting as well, with a guitarist who was hit by a car right after they released this album and played a gig at Hotel Vegas, putting him in the hospital with terrible injuries and a Go Fund Me to help him pay for it all.  Damn!  I guess he is doing better now! The members of the band are from different smaller towns in Texas - and some of them met up and honed their skills at the Kerrville Folk Festival.  Singer Tyler Jordan claims it was seeing Spoon's ACL taping that cemented his need to move to Austin to make music.  That is cool.  Now I really want to see them play live!  The album opener is the top track for now, with 345k streams.  "Almost Automatic."

Jangly rock and roll that could have come from War on Drugs or some other indie rock darling.  Something about this album just feels like I am getting in on the ground floor of the next big thing.  The opening lyrics for the title track are clever to me: "All my friends from high school / They all got motorcycles / Joined up with a bike gang / supported Donald Trump / I don't think they're evil / Even when they're awful / Not totally class conscious / but ultimately good."  Sloppy-sounding tune, but the imagery he paints is really great.  Nothing in it is ground-breakingly new, but it just perfectly scratches the itch for me.

Quick Hits, Vol. 310 (Angel Olsen, Koffee, Maren Morris, The Mysterines)

Angel Olsen - Big Time.  Something about this album makes me think of those recent Father John Misty albums, where it is a little orchestral and dated-sounding in an odd way.  The steel guitar keeps a country-flavor for much of the songs as well, but it is her voice that runs the show here.  Such a pretty tone.  The title track is a loose and jangly love song that makes me grin.  "Dream Thing" makes me think of Lana Del Rey.  But the album opener is the most streamed, with just over five million.  "All the Good Times."

I've been through the album a number of times now, and it really doesn't grab hold of me.  It is nice, a good set of background tunes, even though I'm sure that the lyrics are the real reason to listen.  I'd rather something that grabbed me sonically and then revealed its good lyrics though.

Koffee - Gifted.  Using snippets of "Redemption Song" in the opening track "x10" is bold.  Koffee came through ACL a few years back and I thought she was cool - new reggae action from an up-and-comer.  This one has a reggae flow to it but frequently just sounds like rap/trap with a singer who happens to have a thick Jamaican accent.  "West Indies" though, that tune is legit.  Interestingly, the album's first few songs are not the most popular, but instead the last three crush the rest of the album.  Very abnormal distribution.  The top one is the final song on the album, "Lockdown," boasting 27.1 million streams.

A pandemic reggae tune!  Except as an allegory to putting her love on lockdown, instead of just the entire world.  That is a super fun tune.  Meh on the album overall though.

Maren Morris - Humble Quest.  This one has been in my queue for so long that it is starting to feel like an old classic that I have always known.  I will readily admit that I don't love Maren Morris - or at least my mind has always registered her name with some disappointment.  Like, I get that I am supposed to like her, but then I listen to anything beyond "My Church" and it isn't there for me.  But I will admit that this album has adjusted that perception some.  She's got a great voice and some clever lyrics in here.  Frequently not a country album, like the piano pop of "The Furthest Thing," and sometimes she straight up sounds like an R&B singer from some classic Jive album ("Tall Guys"), but overall I suppose you would call this country.  "Tall Guys" is an ode to how great a tall man is, which very much seems like a country singer topic, but the delivery just feels like we are listening to something by early P!nk.  "Good Friends" is a fine tune.  "Detour" sounds like something she might have released with The Highwomen.  But the stream king is the opener, an ode to the aimlessness of life in your small hometown as you try to write hits to get you somewhere else.  "Circles Around This Town," with 32.8 million streams.

Something about her glamming as she sings bugs the crap out of me, like she's trying to emphasize the shape of her lips more than the shape of the words.  But I like the song.  Overall, I enjoyed the whole album.  I am surprising myself with liking traditional Nashville country ladies recently.

The Mysterines - Reeling.  There you go.  A friend told me about this band months ago, and I figured it would be good, as the two of us have long bonded over loud, fast, hard-edged tunes.  This one does not disappoint.  "The Bad Thing" has a really sweet, driving jam that erupts in the middle of the tune.  That - driving jam - is actually the theme of most of the album for me - fuzzy guitars, driving beat, and an ominous, powerful set of vocals that is ready to wail at any given time.  Kind of a grunge/alternative crunch.  This is apparently the debut album for this band, released in 2022, so they are brand spankin' new.  It is a full band, but at times they kind of have the sound of a Royal Blood/cleopatrick where it is just a duo bashing out the tunes.  Maybe they'll be at ACL this year!  The top tune is the second song on the album, "Hung Up," with 2.5 million streams.

Yeah baby.  Jam it out.  Did they rent the ballroom at a Holiday Inn?  I know that it is deeply uncool to be in to rock in this day and age, but that tune just cranks.  I hope this band keeps it up - I've not heard anything about them or from them other than my friend's suggestion, but hopefully they blow up soon.

I actually had a thought about something like that the other day, and am deeply annoyed with the "alternative" radio station here in Austin.  Time for a short rant.  When I listen to the alternative station's morning show on the way to work, they pretty much talk about something inane for a few minutes, and then queue up some ancient, dusty alt rock track.  For example, this morning, I heard the following: Staind - Outside (2001), Beck - Loser (1994), Twenty-One Pilots - Heathens (2016), Fuel - Shimmer (1998), Panic! - I Write Sins Not Tragedies (2005), and Alice in Chains - Man in the Box (1990).  Don't get me wrong, some of those are fun songs.  But three of those seven weren't even from this century!  None were released in the last six years!  WTF, man!  There are so many good, fun, alternative rock tracks that they could play.  Be the ones to champion something new and interesting!  That used to be the point of the alt rock station!  Soapbox - done.

Quick Hits, Vol. 309 (Lyle Lovett, Harry Styles, Miranda Lambert, Praise)

Lyle Lovett - 12th of June.  I got to see Lyle and his Large Band perform a good number of these songs earlier in 2022 at a concert at the Moody Theater.  His voice isn't as strong as it once was, and you can hear that here.  The whole first song is just an instrumental jazzy beebop, and so you don't hear his voice until "Pants is Overrated," the second tune.  And as soon as he kicks in, you can hear that he's just a little strained, a little less powerful, a little less clear.  "Are We Dancing" is another that showcases that less-powerful voice.  Which is too bad.  But I will definitely say that the band behind him is killer, and he's still damn interesting as a lyricist.  The title song is a real beauty, and that is the most-streamed tune as well.  363k streams.

Excellent harmonies in there, as well as a lovely sentimental story.  June 12 happens to be the birthday for both of his children, and when you know that the lyrics take a different flavor.  "All I have I gladly give them / All I am they will exceed / And one thing I know for sure / If they improve the likes of me / They make a better man of me."  After having just done a big ceremony for my son over the weekend, you'll excuse me if I am a little overly sentimental and weepy about the pride and love I have for my kiddos.  Hits a little different today!  This album isn't perfect, or among his best albums, but it has some really nice bits and pieces.

Harry Styles - Harry's House.  I'm well aware that this review is long overdue - everyone has already given all of the possible opinions about this album that anyone could ever need.  But the ACL monster takes up so much of my time that I never got around to it until now.  When I first turned on the album, many moons ago by now, I was not very excited by the opening track, "Music for a Sushi Restaurant," but now the brightly lit vocals and funky bass stick to my ears like a gummy little piece of rice you can't get off of a chopstick.  "Daydreaming" is nice, "Late Night Talking" is very good, but the megahit is "As It Was," with more than 1.6 BILLION streams.

Man, this makes me so annoyed that I didn't pony up and go to his concerts when he was in Austin.  I had FOMO then, but wasn't willing to pay up for the tickets.  But I sure do wish I would have made it happen...  Just a poppy blast of bright, danceable joy, despite the lyrics.  "In this world, it's just us, you know it's not the same as it was."  As relationships change and evolve over time, that lyric is so true.  The glory of most of the album is the funky, groovy, danceability of it.  He left behind some of that 70's Americana gold from his last album for something that sound classic but is also deeply bouncy and bright.  Really tasty disc.

Miranda Lambert - Palomino.  My normal angle would definitely be that I don't listen to purely Nashville artists like Lambert.  But then I make exceptions for people like Stapleton and Simpson.  Now Lambert is making me think she belongs in that same list of exceptions.  I really enjoyed her scruffy last album with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall, so I figured I'd give this one a shot.  It is really enjoyable.  In part, that is because a lot of these songs are already in my head from the Marfa Tapes disc, but also because they are a good combination of country, rock, and solid songwriting.  And there are some curveballs on here - she's got the B-52's singing backup on one tune!  "Geraldine" makes me think of "Jolene."  "In His Arms" is lovely.  "Country Money" is funny.  "Waxahachie" is odd, because she asks the town if it is still on '35.  Like, are some towns known for picking themselves up and moving?  But it is a nice song - I dig the lyric of writing a lipstick letter while on a bourbon buzz.  But the top tune is "If I was a Cowboy," with a big lead over all other songs at 66.8 million streams.

Kind of has a Kacey sound to it.  Honestly, one of the weaker tunes on here in my opinion.  I much prefer the rest of the disc.  Not a bad song, just seems more like a contrived Nashville song working hard to make sure that she could sing about being the queen cowboy.  But, I'll absolutely keep this disc around.  I like it.

Praise - All In a Dream.  No recollection of where this album came from, but I still have a lot of music that has been in my new music queue for a while during the ACL season.  I dig the backing tunes - alternative rock/lite hardcore jams - but I'm less excited about the vocals.  They are kind of yelpy vocals that are stuck on one note.  You can definitely hear that on the title track, which is the top song on here at 120k streams.

It just starts to grate my nerves after a while that he's hollering more than singing.  And yes, I know that some of my favorite bands sound like screaming, but for whatever reason this one bugs after a while.  "Return to Life" has some backup vocals that feel more melodic, and therefore more enjoyable to me.  I might have found this while hunting for other bands like Turnstile, to see if they might give me the same jolt.  Not so much.