Unlike those words that I have heard from so many people over the years: "they don't make music like they used to," I find the opposite is true. Yes, technically music making has evolved over the years. Increased access to equipment, recording, and ways to find an audience has changed drastically. The spirit hasn't though. There is incredible music being made all around us all of the time. More than ever. It's difficult to keep up! My problem as an older person who has yet to fully adjust to the idea that music doesn't have to be physically possessed is that I get overwhelmed. I am fully aware that I have missed a lot of great music this year, because I get overwhelmed by it. There's too much! I do not make enough time available to hear more music. I cannot afford it. I can't keep up! These selections are ten of many releases I enjoyed this year. I share them only hoping to present my thoughts in a vague way to show appreciation to these great artists and inspire an individual to look into these artists further. There's always been good music and likely always will be. Happy New Year!!
Write ups can be accessed via the band/album names below
The debut album, Every Heaven, from Chicago’s Humdrum
is an indie pop dream come true. To get
the easiest comparisons out of the way, if you were a fan of the band Star Tropics, who existed throughout
the twenty-teens, yet only managed one full length LP, the incredibly
infectious Lost World (Shelflife
Records, 2017), the precursor and required listening for Humdrum, as
bandleader/songwriter Loren Vanderbilt
is the man behind both of these projects.
In other words, if you loved Lost
World, you will undoubtedly love Every
Heaven,
Other comparisons and influences
could be the entirety of the Sarah
Records catalogue (1987-1995, 100 releases), or more specifically The Field Mice and their indie pop
singles like “September’s Not so Far Away” as channeled through the jangles of
early R.E.M. and the straightforward
urgent bass lines of The Railway
Children. I also keep thinking of
the version of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s
re-take of “The Hardest Walk” from the Some
Kind of Wonderful movie soundtrack.
This album is on the Slumberland
Record label as well, so that alone is both an influence and a stamp of high
quality.
There’s a dreamy sentimentality to
these songs that creates a wonderful nostalgia for naïve times in our lives
when our emotions are especially dramatic and unjaded by life’s experience. It’s so refreshing and familiar that there’s
no way to not feel comfortable and at home listening to Every Heaven.
The title track is a brief instrumental
opener with a pounding drum machine and an ever ascending exploratory feel that
ends with a woman’s voice saying “What is it about this place? It’s like another world” before segueing into the very Field Mice-like “There and Back
Again,” (another Sarah reference?) which is so unbelievably catchy that it’s
kind of unfair. Loren’s vocals are friendly
and humble sounding with a hint of emotion and maybe a dose of impatience or
excited anticipation. The thing is that
the next song “Superbloom” is every bit as addictive, as well as “Wave Goodbye,”
with its cascading guitars and its spectacular bridge and chorus. I don’t know who does the backing vocals, but
when they appear the harmonies are fantastic!
Side two does not let up at all, as “See
Through You” surges with great energy and another perfect chorus, “Eternal Blue”
evokes the greatness of The Cure’s
timeless 1987 single “Just Like Heaven” (that keyboard!). Most of these songs are upbeat and
exciting. The lower tempo songs add a
nice dynamic, and more of those yearning keyboards that transport one to
somewhere “a million miles away,” as repeated in “Ultraviolet.”
Every Heaven
is an album that I cannot stop listening to.
It feels like I’ve been listening to these songs all of my life and the
songs always feel like a soothing balm to any kind of ills. Like visiting with a longtime friend. The kind of friend one can relate to no
matter the passage of time..
