Home
the record
Loading Inventory...
Barnes and Noble
the record
Current price: $19.99
Barnes and Noble
the record
Current price: $19.99
Loading Inventory...
Size: CD
*Product Information may vary - to confirm product availability, pricing, and additional information please contact Barnes and Noble
Five years is a long time, long enough for a band to wander, reunite, and find themselves on a different plane. Such is the case of
, the indie supergroup of
,
, and
. When the trio first joined forces in 2018, it was to bash out an EP over the course of four days, releasing the results on
. Everything about
, the full-length debut delivered a half-decade later, is more deliberate.
spent a month cutting
, releasing it on
to great fanfare in March 2023. The leap to the majors certainly reflects how the profiles of
, and especially
have been elevated since the
EP, a rise aided by each of the three releasing strong, distinctive albums in its wake. What's remarkable about
is how these three idiosyncratic songwriters consciously decide to subsume their quirks within a group voice. Individual traits haven't been erased so much as they've been sanded so they can fit neatly together. The unified front gives
shape and heft, qualities apparent from its twin openers: "Without You Without Them" highlights their spectral harmonies, while "$20" drives home an offset riff that's quintessentially 1990s. Much of
feels like a conscious throwback to the spirit of 1993, blending the dreamier and noisier aspects of alt-rock, feeling equally at home with the bittersweet strums of "Leonard Cohen" and the walloping hooks of "Satanist," not to mention how "True Blue" and "Not Strong Enough" land squarely in the middle of this spectrum. Collectively,
feels heftier and hookier than
do on their own, and this collective instinct towards immediacy pays great dividends: it's bracing to hear such introspective singer/songwriters embrace the pleasures of a united front. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine