David Vandervelde - Nothin No - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Bearing an immediate resemblance to Marc Bolan and David Bowie, deeper listening rewards the listener with a much broader musical universe. Self-taught on guitar, drums, bass, piano, synth, and other studio tools, Vandervelde is an adventurous artist, one who embraces classic rock songwriting and whose spirit is just banging at the door to get unleashed. Music to party and make love to is back.

While Bully's 2013 debut Feels Like tumbled headlong into the precarious nature of Alicia Bognanno's young adult life, it's follow-up Losing is their first for Sub Pop (which in many ways feels like their spiritual home; Bully's sound is an outgrowth of the bands the tag championed in the late '80s and '90s). Losing is a document of the complexity of growth navigating breakups with sensitivity, learning not to flee from your troubles but to face them down no matter how messy they may be (InchWell, this isn't the summer I wanted,Inch she muses on InchBlame,Inch before admitting that she's trying to Inchcut down on booze and youInch). Written as the group slowed down from touring constantly and Bognanno attempted to adjust to how different a home schedule is from a road schedule, her songwriting has matured from the quick one-two punches of Feels Like to tracks that contemplate the necessity of space in both song structure and emotion. Bognanno's gruff yet dynamic voice is allowed to bloom, and it has a tenderness and openness to it here that's new. There are multiple layers of wistfulness and care to her delivery of lines like InchIt just takes one disagreement for you to remember the one time I fucked up,Inch from InchSpiral,Inch turning songs that could be one-dimensional kiss-offs into warm and complex expressions of regret.

The first long player from Vandervilde, on the heels of his much loved mini-album debut, THE MOONSTATION HOUSE BAND. The material on this is of higher order, lyrically more personal, and stripped down. He's toured with the likes of Spoon, Blitzen Trapper and Richard Swift.