Good Looks - Bummer Year - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The greatly sought-after tenor James Gilchrist pairs with pianist Anna Tilbrook to continue his highly acclaimed exploration of British song with a new recording of Benjamin Britten works. As stated by the times following his work with Finzi, Leighton, Vaughan Williams, Gurney, Bliss, and Herbert, InchAs an interpreter of English song, Gilchrist is often in a class by himself.Inch

Good Looks write kindhearted and cathartic rock songs about the persistence required to make it through hard times. In April 2022, the Austin, Texas quartet released their critically acclaimed debut Bummer Year. Immediately after their triumphant hometown record show, lead guitarist Jake Ames was hit by a car crossing the street, fracturing his skull and tailbone. Thankfully, Ames made a full recovery. The traumatic accident strengthened the bond that built their electric new album Lived Here For A While. Out May 3 via Keeled Scales, it's fearlessly direct music that captures the full-throated intensity of their galvanizing live show. Reinvigorated, Good Looks tracked Lived Here For A While at Texas' Dandy Sounds with producer/engineer Dan Duszynski (of Loma and Cross Record) the following summer. Though Ames had to relearn some of his parts, his palpably energetic performances elevated the entire record. On the LP, the band trades the Americana sound that colored in the lines of Bummer Year for clanging post-punk guitars and expansive indie rock. Lyrically, the songs on this album are healing meditations on family dysfunction, new relationships, and how a home can become unrecognizable. Lyricist Tyler Jordan's songs explore how relationships can crumble irrevocably but also how those partnerships can be centering, hopeful, and exciting. In another horrific accident in July 2023, their tour van was rear-ended by a speeding car, causing their van, instruments, merch, and records, to become engulfed in flames. Thankfully, none of the band members suffered serious injuries. This resilience is essential to Good Looks and why the songs on Lived Here For A While resonate so profoundly.

Born and raised in small Texas towns, the members of Good Looks met and began playing together in Austin. Songwriter Tyler Jordan grew up in a South Texas coastal town dominated by the petrochemical industry, his childhood steeped in the tension between nature and industry, exploitation abundantly present and the wealth gap on full display. His father's church, described by Tyler as Inchcult-like in it's intensity,Inch was homebase and where he learned to SI ng. Tyler eventually met lead guitarist Jake Ames in the late-night song-swap circles of the Kerrville Folk Festival campground (where they would also meet Buck Meek and Adrienne Lenker pre-Big Thief). They shared their mutual love of the Texas hill country canon (Blaze Foley, Townes Van Zandt, and Willie elson), a love of cheap diner food, thrift store baseball caps, and a healthy dose of harmless S**t-talking. They began playing in bands together, backing up other songwriters and taking turns in the spotlight. They sought out producer Dan Duszynski (Loma, RF Shannon, Jess Williamson) to engineer their debut album. What would form was Good Looks, a blue-collar political indie-rock band with healthy doses of Replacements swagger and shimmering, desert rock riffs not unlike The War On Drugs. Selling Points Instantly accessible anthemic indie-rock with literary lyrics Touring the US in February and April 2022 Playing Keeled Scales official SXSW showcase 111 2022 with Katy Kirby, Sun June, and Lunar Vacation.