Quick Hits, Vol. 179 (I'm With Her, Soccer Mommy, Moby, Robert Finley)

I'm With Her - See You Around.  I'm an unrepentant sucker for Sarah Jarosz.  Pretty much just sign me up for whatever she plays or sings.  This band combines her with Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) and Aoife O'Donovan (which just took me like 9 minutes to type correctly, and who is from bands called Crooked Still and Sometymes Why, which I have never heard of before).  So, with those three ladies involved, you are getting prime harmonies and good, subtle musicianship.  This is right up my alley.  I will admit that, after probably 10 listens to the album in the past three days, the album tends to just disappear on me.  It just glides past my earholes and then a terrible new DJ Khaled song comes on before I've even noticed that all the songs are over. (FYI, PSA, that new DJ Khaled song with Jay Z and Beyonce is trash)  But if you pause your day and just listen to these ladies go, each of them is doing something rad throughout each song.  Very cool.  The top track is "Game to Lose," with 1.2 million streams.

Like I said, harmonies for days and lovely musicianship - Jarosz with that mandolin is my crack cocaine.  "Overland," which sounds like something from the Basement Tapes album, keeps catching my attention as well.  Also, not on this album, but they have a stand-up-bass-centric cover of Adele's "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" that sounds like something they jack off to at NPR's corporate headquarters.  This album isn't especially exciting, but it really is beautiful.  I like that the word subtle popped into my head up above, because I think that perfectly matches my feeling here.

Soccer Mommy - clean.  This band popped up on my radar mainly because I though the name of the band was clever.  Great band name.  I guess it showed up as a related artist when I was listening to Hovvdy the other day, which makes some sense, since this is cool indie rock stuff in that same vein, but a little more fun here.  Several of these songs are very good, but one stands out so far that I have to play it for you immediately.  "Your Dog" has some swagger and anger, covered by a relatively sunny indie rock tune, that meshes just right.

Well holy fuck.  That video is disturbing as all hell.  But again, great song, I like the slight distortions in the guitar that remind me of Mac Demarco, and the way she slips in profanity and anger as though she is singing a love song.  Very cool.  "Cool" is also a great tune.  Something about the languid way she sings and tosses in offhand curse words is highly bitchin'.  Some of this reminds me of the early Car Seat Headrest stuff - DIY sounding and raw, but others of these tunes are a little more polished.  I like this album quite a bit.

Moby - Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt.  For all of the rad-ness of that last album, this one is just boring.  I generally liked Moby back in the day, but I don't see why this needed to happen.  More of the same things he used to do - chilled out beats and some ethereal singing and here and there some rap-ish speaking.  I kind of like "Like a Motherless Child," but that is probably the best thing on here.  None of the songs on this break his top ten most popular tracks (not a good sign).  The second-to-last tune on the album is the most streamed, at just over 200k (which is weird, but whatever, streaming does odd things to music these days).  Here is "This Wild Darkness."

Soooooooo deep, bro.  <vomit, burp, cough, hack, vomit>  If it wasn't all so pretentious, with Moby stolidly speaking straight to the camera with his platitudes, it might be kind of neat, the chill beat and the gospel choir.  But nope.  Not for me.  GTFOH.

Robert Finley - Goin' Platinum!  You have to love the brash confidence of this dude with that album title.  This is fine blues rock stuff - first stop in the experience should be the "Bang a Gong" fuzzy swagger of "Real Love is Like Hard Time," with soulful choir and legit guitar fireworks.  High fun on that song.  The guy looks like he's 70 years old, but literally has only two albums available on Spotify - 2016 album and this one from 2017.  According to his bio this album is produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and you can tell, which I think is a great thing.  I might need to just set up some sort of Internet warning thing to let me know anytime an album is released with production from Auerbach, since I know I am likely going to dig it.
The top track is "Get It While You Can," which has only 188k streams, and is the album opener.

OK, man.  That dude is cute.  Like charming grandpa cute.  Acting out his lyrics and dancing around in that shiny orange shirt.  And after he's done shoving his crotch toward the camera for 3 minutes, that raised eyebrow point to the camera move?  Boss level shit, man.  I require adoption by this man and immediate grandfather/grandson fishing trips and catfish fries.  Good stuff.