The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
Gladie grew greatly over the last few years.
When we last heard from the Philadelphia-based five-piece, snotty sneer and reverb were still pillars of the band’s sound. Nearly four years have passed since then, and Gladie is back with the band’s biggest, best, and most mature album, No Need to Be Lonely.1
That maturation comes with a few pit stops in warm, roots music-influenced terrain, but for the most part, it doesn’t rob Gladie of any feistiness. It’s still a band with energy and tight riffs to spare, and most of No Need to Be Lonely’s songs qualify as uptempo, if not outright rave-ups that would have made sense on a previous Gladie album. They just sound fuller, richer, and clearer than the hypothetical earlier version. It’s an upgrade that allows lead vocalist Augusta Koch to shine, emphasizing her cleverness as a lyricist and the voice-cracking emotionality of her singing voice.
Whether it’s a pithy one-liner like, “I brace myself to embrace you,” or a self-searching series of questions like “What makes you quiet?/ What keeps you small?/ Why do you give ’em power/ When they don’t care at all?” Koch’s heartfelt rasp provides exactly what the song needs.
Improved fidelity is also flattering to the rest of the band. Matt Schimelfenig and Koch’s guitars are bright, loud, and play well with each other while maintaining enough separation to clock as separate instruments. Miles Ziskind’s drums have a crisp snap, which, combined with Evan Demianczyk’s easy-to-find bass, keeps things as tight or loose as they need to be, and the LP boasts the best-sounding backing vocals in the Gladie oeuvre thanks to a combination of Schimelfenig, Liz Parsons and a handful of guests.
DIY icon Jeff Rosenstock, who produced the album,2 contributes tasteful mellotron and organ to a few tracks and previously featured Gladie as an opening act, deserves kudos for how No Need to Be Lonely sounds.3 Rosenstock doesn’t have many production credits to his name, but there’s now a strong case that he should change that.
Of course, Gladie deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the leap forward. Koch and Co. showed the potential to make an album as strong as No Need to Be Lonely across their past releases both with Gladie and other projects.4 Now, they’ve made good on that upside with an introspective album that splits the difference between pop punk and power pop and sounds good whether Gladie is ruminating or raging.
“I Will If You Will” stands out among the album’s gentler songs. It features a sonic palette pulled from country — or at least Waxahatche — with a steely twang, piano, knee-bouncing melody, and layers of vocals that support a slow-building powerhouse performance from Koch. The belt-it-out stretch that winds down the song must bring the house down live.
Several songs could plausibly lay claim to being No Need to Be Lonely’s best fast song. There isn’t a world of difference in terms of style or quality between the quicker tracks, which could be a detriment if the LP ran longer. But at a lean 11 songs, including a short and sweet intro, it’s more feature than bug — a signature sound, not underwhelming uniformity.
Gladie-curious readers looking for a taste of that aspect of the album would be hard-pressed to do better than starting with “I Want That For You,” No Need to Be Lonely’s super buzzy, loud-quiet-loud de facto title track. It’s a song with both a late-song build-up that queues up righteous yet tasteful guitar heroics and an instrument-by-instrument fadeout while Koch repeatedly chants “Now, there’s no need to be lonely” until the words are a cappella. It’s not subtle, but it really puts a bow on a lot of what Gladie does well.
And it turns out that what Gladie does well makes for an exceptional listen.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Five, Episode Eleven
“How are you doing today, sir?”
“Not so good. And it’s because I’m a test tube baby.”
“Remember, Cath, you once said you did it for a roll of toilet paper.”
“Oh yeah, but that was in college.”
“To a great five minutes of great beauty and a mutually enjoyable business arrangement.”
“Hey, we may have eaten a triscuit we pulled out of the dumpster, but at least we still have our dignity!”
“Well?”
“It’s not food.”
“There’s a food-like coating covering the television screen.”
“Killer bees! Forgot about them, didn’t you?”
Dead Man’s Wire – Gus Van Sant’s new film, a true-crime tale about a guy in 70s Indianapolis who took his mortgage broker hostage after feeling like their advice had ruined a business opportunity. Some clunky stuff here, including an all-time-classic example of the “actor’s face terribly photoshopped into a vintage photo”, but the story is a good one and Van Sant assembled a solid cast to recreate the events – Bill Skarsgard is nicely twitchy in the lead and Colman Domingo is (as usual) great as the local radio DJ that the kidnapper decides he trusts more than the cops, and much of the rest of the film is populated by people with Appropriate 1970s Faces. One of the lead cops is Cary Elwes but I didn’t realise this until the credits rolled, he looks very different with facial hair! But yeah, overall a solidly entertaining film that probably won’t stick in my head for too long. Which is kind of the way I feel about most of the Gus Van Sant stuff I’ve seen to be honest.
Elwes is also in Blackberry and not bearded but is so different from his more dashing younger parts that it takes a sec to realize it’s him.
Elementary, “Child Predator” – The title is a spoiler. Holmes and Watson are on the trail of serial killer of children called “The Balloon Man,” only to discover that his first victim isn’t dead but instead was raised by him. And was in fact the actual killer once the crime changed from just kidnapping. Once you accept the premise, the rest forms the spine of a very good suspense mystery with an antagonist who is a challenge to our hero’s intellect. Rewatching this, I find myself divided between trying to observe how Holmes and Watson are reinvented and how this CBS procedural mystery works (since as Captain Nath and others note, CBS still does them and apparently does them well). Certainly it’s a watchable and often fun procedural. But after only three episodes, it’s hard to say just how much Holmes and Watson is here. Holmes is of course just as smart, smug, dedicated, and difficult as ever, and much is clearly lifted from the stories. Watson is really a new character. It works, but when held up to more traditional adaptations – and there are so many – I can’t say it’s really Holmes and Watson. But does it matter?
The Pitt – Penultimate(?) episode with the show’s strengths and weaknesses on display, especially thematic unity and lines/subplots that are sometimes a bit too neat, often just right. Do I believe getting older people into assisted living is that easy? No, not really. Meanwhile, I buy the hilarious “…Do you want a hug?” “Oh god, no.” There’s a good theme throughout of responsibility, with Dana and Robbie having the opposite of their convo last year when they hash out Robbie’s obvious death wish and Dana’s PTSD. Al-Hashimi continues to be a good player in the drama; being an outsider, she actually makes good suggestions along with bad ones (the patient portals are clearly useless), and a good one is having two attendings on hand. Robbie takes the idea that the unit needs two people in charge personally, as he would, but it is so laughably apparent that he’s burnt out and needs help – not just therapeutically but professionally. Whitaker nearly getting Santos to admit she likes having him as a roommate is hilarious.
Crazy crap this week: The fireworks patient’s skull does some arterial spray. Guy in renal failure vomiting what looks like Pepto Bismol. (The kid playing his son does a great job.)
What did we listen to?
1001 Albums, etc – still held up by work being crazy busy, but got a couple in:
Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA: increasingly feeling like I’m never really going to warm to Springsteen, his albums generally deliver a song or two that I like but the general vibe is just not really my thing. The big singles here have some undeniable power but I didn’t really find anything new to add to the list of Springsteen Songs That I Like. Maybe he’s just TOO American for my tastes.
The Fall – This Nation’s Saving Grace: I generally like Fall tracks in isolation but find them a bit exhausting at album length, but this might be the best thing I’ve heard from them so far. Good mix of abrasive stuff and slightly more pop-leaning stuff. Not an album I’m going to throw on regularly but definitely a big step towards feeling like I get the band’s appeal.
Screen Drafts, “Holly Hunter” – a really good one, I generally really enjoy it when one of the two hosts steps out to take part in a draft, they’re both good at delivering passionate picks and I enjoyed hearing Clay talk about his favourite movie here even if it (Broadcast News) isn’t my favourite Hunter. Raising Arizona only making #5 is a little crazy to me but I guess I can live with it. Some interesting deeper cuts discussed that will definitely make it onto my watchlist.
Was JUST listening to Saving Grace. And yes, I dunno how Springsteen translates to non-Americans sometimes; he’s as wrapped in American identity as you could possibly get.
I do know a couple of Brits who are big fans. But then as previously complained about, I know a few Brits who inexplicably sing in American accents, so there’s no accounting for taste.
I keep stalling out on Blank Check. Like, Jennifer Kent is the perfect guest for Gallipoli, but it didn’t take long for me to feel like neither show nor the Two Friends had a lot to say. Probably doesn’t help that she’s not a friend AND that Griffin was getting fanboy on her. I am increasingly of the mind that the chemistry needed to allow a new guest to work is harder to come by the longer the show is on. And I really want more debate, but that isn’t really what they are going for. (Really curious who they get for the next one, or how they handle the iffy politics or yellowface.)
Teenage Head by Flamin’ Groovies – Good blues-rock/pop album, though Mick Jagger thinking it’s better than Sticky Fingers is surprisingly modest for Jagger.
Miami by The Gun Club gets better on revisit, these are just terrific songs, a soup of blues, country, and punk that gets to something primordial and nasty.
Found a 60’s audio performance of The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter on LibroVox that is excellent. It’s very apparent that from the start Pinter was a political writer; he merely got more explicit about this with age and time.
Those first two Gun Club albums are something special!
Two outstanding side one track ones, too.
Agreed, what do you think of the rest? Haven’t given ’em a shot yet.
It’s been a long time since I did a deep dive, but my recollection is almost immediate diminishing returns.
Usually, when I want more the Gun Club, but don’t want to relisten to Fire of Love or Miami, I wind up putting on a different Jeffrey Lee Pierce band — Tex and the Horseheads.