Context – car ride home

This album has been a roller coaster of emotion.

It all started when I realized it was 4:30 and I hadn’t listened to an album for today yet.  This presented a huge problem for me as my wife and I have dinner plans with some friends tonight, so I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time to play catch-up.

So I scroll through the new albums looking for that new Papa Roach album, except it’s a double header running at almost two hours.  Who the fuck has two hours to listen to Papa Roach?  Not this guy.

I keep scrolling through Spotify’s New Release radar thing and find this album, Magic Valley by Goodbye June.  I figure “that’s just open ended enough to be broadly in my interests” and download it for the road.

The album explodes into focus with the opening track “Bamboozler” with a country and rockabilly infused rock-n-roll sound.  The singer sounds a bit like Brian Johnson from AC/DC, but less than in the best way.  That guy’s voice gets on my nerves, and just as whoever’s singing in Goodbye June starts to get a little too AC/DC, he changes it up and swerves left.

“Oh No” follows in this suit, and I’m super excited for this album.  Good grooves, good riffs, good times.  Just some more earnest as fuck rock-n-roll.  I can’t wait to sing this album’s praises.

But then “Daisy” hits, and it’s a fine song.  A bit softer, but no less interesting.  I’m wary, but still open to new possibilities.  Gotta slow it down to bring it back up and all that jazz.

Except it never really reaches the excitement and energy presented in those first two tracks.  There are a couple of other sleepers on this album like “Goldmaker” and a straight up power-ballad in “Darlin'”, but other than that it’s mostly just mediocre rock tunes I’d expect to skip when they show up on alternative radio.  Which is a bummer.

I’m excited to keep some of these songs on my playlists.  “Bamboozler” in particular, that jam rules.  But overall this album got my hopes up.

So I don’t know, C/C-?  Something like that.