Rapid Fire Reviews: Indie Folk with Whitney, The Mountain Goats & Wilco

I've had a busy few weeks but this was yet another massive release weekend on top of the hundreds of albums I already feel like I have to play catch-up on. So hopefully there will be a LOT of rapid fire reviews coming soon.

SPARK - Whitney

I've been a fan of pretty much everything Whitney has done since they first started out. Their very raw debut album turned up the folk influences and ciphered it through their own eccentricities, giving the impression of a true local band gone international overnight. Their sophomore album was another treat even as it shifted their sound into a much more familiar and polished brand of indie folk. In fact, the first inclination I had that I might ever actually not like a Whitney record was when I heard the lead single from this album, which seemed to predict a sea change I wasn't really vibing with. But after a parade of singles that reinforced to me why Whitney are who they are I was excited for the record all over again. That excitement turned out to be well placed because I can once again say I like Spark quite a bit. Singles like the summery and beautiful Blue and the track Memory which feels like one of the strongest callbacks to old Whitney on the entire album helped paint the picture of an equally as vibrant but more sonically adventurous journey for the band. While "pop" can often come off as a bad word in indie circles Whitney are introducing the sounds and more importantly the structures of pop into some of these songs and I think it actually translates over really well. Not to say there aren't compelling ballads in the mix as Julian's gentle vocals continue to be one of the best assets in the band's bag. Even the lead single Real Love which I was pretty harsh to at first and least makes more sense and feels more tolerable within the tracklist of the record proper. The run from Self to Terminal on the bac half of the record can be a bit of a snooze but it's ultimately paid off by the very strong ending the record has. Heart Will beat is an absolutely infectious little piece of indie pop with some bouncy memorable refrains whereas  Lost Control is a more flirty psychedelic song with its own catchy repeated refrains. On top of it all is the wonderful icing on the cake from the record's dramatic love story gone wrong finale County Lines which feels like it has all the potential of a classic folk love song. I like this record quite a bit and I wish I hadn't sat on it for so long before reviewing it. It's just a flat-out enjoyable piece of indie folk that manages to expand the band's sound in subtle ways while still maintaining exactly what made it so rewarding in the first place. 7.5/10

Bleed Out - The Mountain Goats

While the Mountain Goats haven't been on what I would exactly consider a hot streak dating back to 2019, their project last year was an improvement in my eyes and some of the positive buzz from fans as the singles unfolded for this record piqued my interest even though they weren't blowing me away individually. The record opens up with those three singles and it took me a while to settle on how much I like them as a bunch, turns out it's quite a bit. The only one I liked a lot right away was opener Training Montage which is a hair indulgent but also has some of the most exciting songwriting I've heard from this band in a long time and it was really easy for me to get into. Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome is a great title that I was excited to see John run with but the song didn't really click with me right away. Turns out some of the clumsiness of the bridge and hook started to grow on me as the song starts to feel more like a parody of empty platitudes than a genuine call to action. Mark On You still doesn't stick with me nearly as much as the others even though I can certainly respect the attempt to make it exciting and keep it short and to the point. My main issue with the record beyond the singles come on the longer tracks. While I've never had many complaints about longer Mountain Goats songs in the past on this record as the songs reach into the five, six even seven-minute mark they just start to feel like they're looping back over the same territory over and over again even if I like the core of the tracks, as is the case with a song like Hostages. The shorter tracks definitely pick up the slack and they start pretty quickly as the run from Bones Don't Rust to Make You Suffer is thoroughly enjoyable. Mostly the thing I'm happiest to see back is the energy level. While there were certainly songs along the way that I enjoyed quite a bit like The Slow Parts In Death Metal Songs listening to a full album worth of those meditations never really felt like the best path for TMG and even though this isn't their best set of songs ever, the excitement it brings makes for an easier and more fun listening experience. Bleed Out isn't perfect but it's the best Mountain Goats record I've heard in a few years and it has me excited for where the band might go next. 7/10

Cruel Country - Wilco

I think this may come as a surprise to a lot of people but I ended up enjoying a good bit of this Wilco album. I wasn't crazy about the previous one, in fact, you'd have to go all the way back to 2015's Star Wars for the last Wilco or Jeff Tweedy project I really enjoyed. But the band's heyday was SO good that I'll keep giving their music a try until the sun burns out and this record while being far too long for its own good, did manage to deliver some of the best Wilco songs in years. While I wasn't blown away by any of the singles and I can't say there are any songs here that might end up on my songs of the year list, the long runtime gives way to a number of really enjoyable moments. Of course, I can't forgive the excess as you could trim this down to a 45-minute or even a full hour of material that would be a big improvement, with numerous songs here feeling like incredibly redundant retreads of other songs on the record or on the band's last record. But when push comes to shove I think this is an improvement and the purposeful intimacy of the style the record is recorded in does quite a bit to elevate this material beyond the Wilco baseline of good songwriting and performances. Seeing them nail down a specific style, even with how little flare is involved along the way, is refreshing this late in the career of one of indie folk's all-time great acts. At the very least the record bought me another decade of paying attention to anything Tweedy and company put their minds to. 6/10