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There Is No Feeling Better, the fourth album from Bloomington, Indiana's Mike Adams At His Honest Weight finds the titular Adams-the singer/songwriter/- multi-instrumentalist/producer at the center of the independent pop institution-focused less on who he is and more on where he is. Though the album's not short on truthful introspection, it's an outward gaze that defines these eleven songs. In their hovering melodies and warm tones, Adams tries to make sense of an increasingly baffling world. He comes up with a couple of answers, but more often than that, he's come up with good questions InchWhat if I was wonderful to love?Inch Could a modest getting by be enough to build a life? What if our best guesses turn out wrong? Who's going to remember us when we're gone? Why is it so hard to tell the difference between the good guys and bad guys? InchHow come the laugh track ain't the last thing before the fade?Inch It's the kind of record you can make only after really knowing how to make records. It's ambitious, but never labored sounding, sweeping but always intimate. All the qualities that have made the Adams songbook such a joyful collection to engage with-the witticism of 2011's Oscillate Wisely, the playful experimentalism of 2014's Best of Boiler Room Classics, the gigantic melodies of 2016's Casino Drone-are on display here yet again, but they feel heightened, deeper, funnier, sweeter, and more resonant. Pulling from disparate sources, like retro-pop era Starflyer 59, ELO, the Beach Boys at their most transcendental, the Southern gospel of the Isaacs, and the dead-serious humor of The Roches, Adams has shaped these touchstones into a new world. The sock hop mysticism of InchFree & Reduced,Inch the noir mood of InchThat's One Way,Inch the rich cooing of InchEducated Guess,Inch the daydream pop of InchOliviaInch-you can live in songs like these. They're testaments to
