Review Summary: Good Looking Friends...they're referring to you!
I'm alone in my parent's house as an adult, freshly graduated from college, lying around in bed on my laptop – killing time before I borrow the car for another shift at the nearby pizza place. Searching through bandcamp for I can't remember what now, mistyping, and accidentally stumbling upon Good Looking Friends' first EP.
I'm in Brooklyn a few years later, waking up in a friend's apartment. Morning light fills the living room with an irritating glow that my hangover takes personally. One of his roommates leans forward on the couch to grab her phone, and asks me if I like weird music. She puts on Good Looking Friends.
It has been a few years of these kind of circumstances and connections keeping me tethered to this band. That and the wonderfully dense, beautifully articulate music they been releasing over the last decade. Maybe indie, maybe emo, maybe post, maybe occasionally math-ey rock, Good Looking Friends has never been comfortable fitting into one genre in their past, and this trend continues on their latest album. Most of the songs come in under 4 minutes, but that doesn't stop the band from squeezing each one full of musical ideas.
Continuing the tradition of literary references in their music, the album opens with the Tolkien centric “Tuor, Son of Huor”. Starting with a groovy pop-punk drumline and chucking guitar, the song quickly becomes a transition machine, with the entire band's control of pace on full display, stopping and starting with a seamlessness until the song ends. At 73 seconds, “Jaywalker” is the shortest, but maybe one of the most memorable songs on the album. The band has never sounded more unhinged, their screaming barely trapped in by the recording. “Shots and Beers” immediately follows and couldn't be more different, a joyous saxophone playing over the chorus, while a delightful guitar riff takes verse duties. Joe Reinhart's production on this record gives room for every instrument, every voice without it sounding muddied or overwhelming.
The album continues with song after song of dense, yet accessible arrangements that are a joy to engage with. Each one is tied together by Zach Fischer's lyrics, clever but never for the sake of it, confessional, but never exploitative – full of expressive, knotty observations. By the time the penultimate “Baba Yaga” comes around, the album has already been through many songs that have seen the band experiment with their sound. It's still not enough preparation for its piercing, propulsive newness. Shelley Washington's voice take center stage for the first time and the dark, reflective lyrics soar over the unrepentant drums and thrashing guitar. It's hard to shake. But the closer “Reynard” tries its best to act as a safe landing, maybe the most familiar of the songs, bringing you back to safety and warmth with it's sing-along, communal ending. Until you go back to the start, to begin the adventure all over again.
