Songs from Massive Nice is a strongly memorable album from Massive Nice, an artist based mostly within the Catskill Mountains who crafts a vivid, interconnected portrait of a small fictional city. Every monitor follows its eccentric, typically supernatural residents, mixing moments of marvel—angels, prophetic desires, uncanny happenings—with grounded explorations of human connection. Solely self-produced, the album fuses indie rock, alt-country, lo-fi, and slacker rock right into a heat, intimate sonic world.
A heat, twangy rock sound performs amidst cautionary lyrical foretelling on “Talking for the Timber,” opening the album. Dreamy vocal reflections and an impactful open air subject recording, from Estonian sound recordist Veljo Runnel, pair with warnings of environmental and ethical decay. The narrator has visions of a future involving “slicing down timber to construct a quick meals restaurant.” The city’s timber plea, as a voice of nature: “Allow us to be man, allow us to be.” Surreal and poignant, the album’s opener stirs in its depictions of looming threats to a small neighborhood, whose lifestyle — appreciating nature, and close-knit connections — could also be in danger.
An additional reverence for nature and Massive Nice in its present type is showcased with “The Seagulls,” a stunning monitor with shades of Impartial Milk Lodge in its melodic art-folk introspections. The standout line — “it’s not but towards the regulation to benefit from the clouds” — once more references a looming sense of restriction and alter, the place enjoyment of nature — whether or not marveling at tall timber or the sky above — takes a backseat to extra short-sighted creature comforts of society. A darker swirl of guitars and synths stir on “The Blackened Ooze and the Little Birds too…” — resembling a confronting of these potential adversaries; the black ooze and the birds “swooping overhead” play as ominous forces into the devastating “I held your face” conclusion, aesthetically displaying shades there of Wilco’s moodiest efforts.
Whereas the album typically succeeds in lofty thematic pursuits of humanity and connection, it additionally stirs with heartfelt focuses like “Me and You Decapitator,” an illustration of affection in Massive Nice inside a rustic/people soothing and shimmering atmospheric send-off, harking back to Damien Jurado. “Take off my head and kiss me / for each hell that I undo,” envelops with intimate imagery capturing give up, need, and the joys of chaotic connection. The extra laid-back, day-to-day character continues on the following “Serling’s Comet,” the place the vocals admit that “not a lot is new in massive nice” — earlier than blasting off right into a whirring rock ardency, the place “suicidal idealizing a large rock coming down from the sky” turns into a fixation of many city residents, including one other foreboding aspect that threatens their every day lives.
A visitation from angels is amongst the opposite occurrences in Massive Nice, detailed on “Daniel Noticed an Angel,” creating from subdued people immersion right into a snarling alt-rock fervency. The city has seen its share of each marvel and unease, from comets to accounts of angels — on this case “over the trailer park, wrapped in white attire” — and it’s conveyed in unbelievable musical from all through the album. One other slice-of-life gem comes on album finale “Massive Nice Credit score Union,” a caressingly textured people magnificence that ruminates on this city of distinctive individuals, with fears and loves, whereas nonetheless emphasizing how human connection shines by all of the dysfunction and anxiousness. Songs from Massive Nice succeeds in each its melodic and narrative-led entrancement.
