Not Even Regret, Sunny

[Editor's note #2: Since I couldn't find more than one photo online, I had Nate send me all the photos of his uncle that he could find. He found one. Here it is.]

As much as I'm tempted to dunk on the Adams' home, hearth, and art, it's not possible today. Here we have a collection of tight, mostly < 3 minute songs in a comfortable new wave-indie-rock aesthetic which quite fits my own aesthetic.

The worst thing I can say is that across twelve tracks, Adams is maybe too comfortable in said aesthetic to the point that some tracks blend together. Even after re-listens, I get that pang as "Outta Luck" turns into "Good/Bad Faith." Yet I like both of these tracks independently—there's the delightful message of "Outta Luck," and "Good/Bad Faith" has my favorite lyric of the album ("Still unclear on your position / It doesn't add up / Years of pent-up indignation won't get the job done / [break] That dog will not hunt").

I mean, it's probably my favorite. Normally I'd go on genius and flip through lyrics and annotations, but it's not possible today. It's okay, I know I don't need lyrics, but there are times of straining to understand what Adams is mumbling about. Yet this too fits with what I loosely label as a bit-less-sad-Morrissey vibe (noted in "Losing Track of Time").

There are more arrangement questions, like "We're Losing" into "Losing Track of Time" (what is this, a game of Grab on Behind?), but again, I'm nitpicking. It's actually around here the album really opens up. You've got the lively "Can't Go Out Tonight" (more Morrissey), a highly relatable song as a stick-in-the-mud myself with a little tactful tambourine. And then my favorite track, "Social Crimes," with a beat/bassline that immediately catches your attention and triplet lyric delivery to sing about social anxieties and social mores that have traversed my head dozens and dozens of times before. And finally, for all my previous gripes about arrangement, going into "Hoping, Waiting" to close it all out really plays.

So if I gotta dunk on Nate I'm gonna need a different court. Damn you Adams clan and your creative prowess!!

p.s. "Bad Advice"'s chorus really sounds like a lyrical version of something I imagine Nate dawg saying