Electric Dad Rock Strut

My summer soundtrack...

School starts back up in 2 1/2 weeks, so I figured I should write about the music I’ve been listening to while reading as much as I can on my porch or while staring out at Canada Lake for over a week around the 4th. Luckily, I’ve had plenty of great new music to choose from…

Bonny Light Horseman//Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free - Bonny Light Horseman is a band I’ve overlooked until this year. Even though Eric Johnson from Fruit Bats is one of the members, I just assumed it wasn’t for me. After the first 2 singles from this album came out, I decided I had maybe made a mistake and went back to their 2022 album, Rolling Golden Holy, and liked it well enough. This new double album, on the other hand? It’s pretty darn great. Anais Mitchell’s voice is cracked and expressive and lovely all at the same time and it pairs very well with Johnson’s. They trade verses throughout and sing harmonies and counterpoints, beguilingly so. Of course, that doesn’t work without songs and they have them. “Keep Me on Your Mind” just has some guitar and eases you into the album then “Lover Take It Easy” adds in some brushed drums and a little horns and some heavenly “oohs.” Those two are followed by “I Know You Know,” which sounds like it could be on a Fruit Bats album; it’s a tremendously appealing folk pop tune. After a short interstitial, we get to those two captivating singles, both of which sound as if they were recorded live (I think they were?). “Old Dutch" starts slowly, with the instruments slowly coalescing while Mitchell and Johnson trade back and forth and come together, weaving in and out of the melody; eventually the song slows back down to a sultry harmonica solo (right?) before picking up steam towards the big finish with a chorus of voices. It is great. Next up is “When I Was Younger,” a song about aging full of wry humor and wisdom with piano, a rolling bassline, enticing percussion, and a slow burn guitar solo. If you get this far into the album and you’re in, you’re in. If not, you might as well stop listening and move on. I, of course, am in.

Bottlecap Mountain/Electric Love Spree - Bottlecap Mountain is a band I wish way more people knew. They have been putting out consistently good albums for a number of years and while they are a rock band, they are not afraid to go where the song takes them. I think the fact there isn’t one “sound” for the band speaks volumes. The album comes blasting out of the gates with “I’ve Got Loving For You,” which will have you singing along halfway through your first listen - it’s groovy, open-hearted, filled with little instrumental touches, and wonderful background vocals. “Tsarina Tsarina” sounds like it would have been a hit in the 80s without the baggage of your typical 80s production style. The bass and piano are standouts on the love song “F.O.X.,” which successfully pulls off using “anaphylaxis” and “axis” in a rhyming couplet. “Peace of Cake” is a 7-minute plus tale about Stewart Gersmann’s family; it’s full of feeling and earns every single second with its words and music (mmm, that bass) even before erupting into a 2 minute guitar solo. The title also makes me feel like the band is in their Prince era - “peace” instead of “piece” and titling songs “Dig Ur Soul” and “When I’m With U.” It makes sense because Prince wasn’t afraid to follow his muse and the band fully embraces that idea on this one. They are also great live (got to see them in March 2023), so if you’re down in Texas be on the lookout for shows.

Buffalo Tom/Jump Rope - The band is back with their 10th studio album, 6 years after Quiet and Peace, which I spent a lot of time listening to. The new one features more Chris Colbourn songs than on any previous album (at least to my recollection) - he has 5 to Bill Janovitz’s 9. The good news is that both are adept writers and their voices play off each other very well no matter who sings lead and who sings backup. The opening 1-2 punch of “Helmet” (Bill on lead) and “New Girl Singing” (Chris on lead) demonstrates the strength of that approach. “Autumn Letter” follows and what a lovely tune it is, riding a strummy guitar and soaring vocals from Bill with some call-and-response from Chris. “Come Closer” is a moodier number and a nice counterpoint to the more acoustic sounds of the album. “The Belle of Borderline Dismay” has a great vocal response that I don’t want to spoil for you, while also being another rock solid pop song. Buffalo Tom isn’t breaking new ground on this album and that’s okay; instead, they are adding more depth to their excellent catalogue. I’ll take all of it they’ve got.

Good Looks/Lived Here For a While - I was a fan of their 2022 album, Bummer Year, but this one is a level up, delivering high quality rock music with some really strong lyrics. “If It’s Gone” is a great opener, building over the course of a couple verses to a tremendous guitar solo before dropping back to the verse while adding new instrumentation along the way; it’s also the song that gives the album its title (and you know I love embedded albums titles). “Desert” is airier with a shuffling beat underneath and brings in some female backing vocals before moving into a more urgent post solo section until it settles back down for the last 20 seconds or so. “White Out” is one of the catchiest tracks about gentrification that you’ll ever hear, urgent and full of buzzsaw guitar. The album closes with “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” which is an emotional look at the strained relationship with a parent that also makes you want to sing along. Good Looks pulls no punches while delivering a punch of rock slathered in great guitar tones.

Guided By Voices/Strut of Kings - This is the 17th, yes 17th, album by the “new” GBV lineup and the band’s 40th overall. Oh, and the first one for this lineup came out in April 2017, so that’s 17 albums in just over 7 years. Amazing. Even more amazing is the quality of them all. This is the only GBV album scheduled for 2024, which last happened with Space Gun in 2018 (by way of contrast, the band put out 3 albums in 2023). "Dear Onion” is a concise 1:47 of crunchy rock. “Fictional Environment Dream” surges toward the anthemic. Only Robert Pollard can get away with a title like “Olympus Cock in Radiana” and have the band back it up with its swaggering power; it also contains the embedded album title. My favorite song is “Serene King,” which sees them in power pop mode. GBV doesn’t have one style, yet everything they do sounds like GBV. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Johnny Blue Skies/Passage du Desir - I joked on the site formerly known as Twitter that I didn’t know how to alphabetize this one. This is a nom de plume for Sturgill Simpson, who said he was only releasing 5 albums, but…it’s totally a Sturgill album. A very good Sturgill album. Okay, here’s my pitch: do you like Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?” If the answer is yes, stop reading and press play on this album. If the answer is no…wait, why is the answer no? Okay, I guess I’ll write a few more words then. “If The Sun Never Rises Again” has a bounce to it, helped along but what sounds like a triangle in the percussion, as well some smoky guitar mixed with keys. The music of “Scooter Blues” totally matches what you expect from these lines - “Spend my mornings making chocolate milk and Eggos/My days at the beach, my nights stepping on Legos” - and makes you want to hit repeat, except then you wouldn’t get to the next great song. “Jupiter’s Faerie” is an over 7 minute epic with heartfelt vocals, swooning strings, and a soaring guitar solo. And speaking of epic, there’s the almost 9-minute closer, “One For The Road,” which loads up on pedal steel, strings, a slinky bassline, and more before stretching out into an extended instrumental passage with plenty of guitar that you could listen to forever. I’ve only talked about half of the songs on the album and the rest are also top-notch. Passage Du Desir is going to end up on a lot of Top 10 lists this year and it will be totally earned.

Redd Kross/Redd Kross - I didn’t know anything about this band until their 2012 album, Researching the Blues, which I really liked. They put out another album in 2019, Beyond the Door, and I got very into their 1993 album, Phaseshifter. This new self-titled (with a cover alluding to the The White Album, no less) is a double album and it is packed with fantastic songs. On first listen, I liked the first song but was gobsmacked by the second, “Stunt Queen,” which is an absolute blast of rock music including a GREAT guitar solo. “The Main Attraction” follows and showcases the how well the voices of the McDonald brothers blend. There’s a psychedelic tinge to “What’s In It For You?,” but the chorus has a glorious stomp to it. “I’ll Take Your Word For It” is straight-up power pop that should be blasting out of car windows on a hot summer day. There is so much more on offer here. Do you want another blistering guitar solo? Check out “Terrible Band.” How about something a little slower without losing any of the band’s power? “The Witches’ Stand” is for you. Do you want proof that the album doesn’t peter out at all? Album closer “Born Innocent” is it. I’ve played this 6 times this month (it’s July 25th as I type this) and I doubt I’m done yet. It’s just that good.

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers/Revelations - This is actually the oldest album on this list, having come out back at the end of March on my birthday. I listened to it when it was first released and then it promptly got lost in the shuffle until late May, but it’s been in steady rotation since. They are a rock band with a country tinge, both in instrumentation (lots of pedal steel) and vocals (Shook has an appealing twang). The title track shows all of that off, but it also gives us a strong guitar solo and rock solid bass holding it down. “M**********r” has that country shuffling beat, loads of slide, and pulls no punches in the lyrics. “Nightingale” makes room for both guitar and pedal steel solos amidst its slowly unfolding soar. If you’re looking for one song to try, “Backsliders” would be a good one, as it showcases the sturdy bass and beat, slide and electric, melody and grit that the band possesses. I became a fan of the band with 2018’s Years, but kinda missed Nightroamer in 2022; after Revelations, I definitely need to go back.

Sadler Vaden/Dad Rock - Sometimes an album comes along that, for whatever reason, you just can’t get enough of. This is one of those albums. I really liked his album from 2020, Anybody Out There?, and would have been eagerly anticipating this new one…except I had no idea it was coming out until I saw something about it late on its release day. The album title has two meanings, one because it opens with “Townsend’s Theme,” named after Sadler’s son and Townsend’s voice is the first thing you hear. It’s an instrumental that shows off Vaden’s excellent guitar skills and songwriting chops, while also pointing towards the other meaning of the album title…namely, if you like “dad rock,” you will like this. Here’s where I point out the ridiculousness of that genre term. I mean, I became a dad at 26, for crying out loud. Okay, digression over and let’s get back to the music. “Dove” flips back and forth between a loping beat and a more up-tempo one with the two being bridged by a nifty bass part - the guitar solo erupts after that transition, first aping the melody and then going enticingly off-script. “The New You” is more gauzy, with washes of guitar and piano accents overtop the steady beat and bass. “Staying Alive” is a glammy strut, full of pounding toms and dripping in slide guitar. Those are the first 4 of the 8 songs on the album and while I could write about every one of the rest of them, this post is already very long. It’s the type of album where your favorite song changes the more you listen (hi, “Two Balloons!”), so keep pressing play and give yourself that chance.

The Well Wishers/Just So You Know - This is the 13th album from The Well Wishers and the first time I’ve ever listened to the band. I read a little about them back when their album Blue Sky Sun came out in 2022, but never managed to put my ears on it. The band does the cool theme song for Power Pop Overdose, which I listen to in podcast form, and that was enough for me to give this one a go. Very glad I did, because this is first-rate power pop. It opens with someone twisting the FM dial, trying to find some music to crank and “Here We Go” fits the bill nicely. “Back Down Son” starts with some chugging guitar before shifting into a catchy chorus. “Good Side” could have been a hit in a different era of radio - it’s such a sturdy pop song that has little touches that raise it above the average. “Could We Ever Get Along?” is a solid rock song that gets elevated when Jeff Shelton yells “solo” and then that solo rips. The album finishes with the piano-led “Harlan Park,” which doesn’t skimp on a snaky guitar riff while pushing past 5 minutes. After listening to this a bunch, I think I need to dip back into The Well Wishers back catalogue and see what other tasty treats await.