Guster: Look Alive (1/28/2024)

Guster: Look Alive [Ocho Mule/Nettwerk, 2019] With a full album performance of their album Lost and Gone Forever in Maine and an Eras Tour imminent, both of which I will be attending, plus a new album, 2024 is certainly going to be a productive year for this idiosyncratic New England indie-rock outfit. In light of the new album, let's take a look back at Guster's last offering, 2019's Look Alive.

First, let me state that I should not be writing this review in the first place, because I'm just as biased as anyone else who was at On The Ocean last year. However, I am not partial to this album. The electronic experimentation on Evermotion tracks like "Endlessly" is taken to the nth degree here, trading the band's unique psychedelic rock style for OK-Computerisms on painfully dull and pessimistic songs like the title track, "Not For Nothing," and "Mind Kontrol." The "I'm free"s in the latter song's chorus perfectly represent a Thom Yorke rip. Sure, there are bright spots; on "Overexcited," Ryan Miller dons a British accent to tell an all-too-familiar tale of adolescent angst, and on "Hello Mister Sun," they manage to make a halfway-decent Phish song (think "Golgi Apparatus" with synths). While some of the songs would and do sound great live, the album itself fails to win over the listener the way classics like Parachute and Evermotion did. You live, you learn, I guess. At least we can keep hoping for [TBA] [4.4/10]