1/6/2024 0 Comments Novena on a nocturn![]() Lewis stayed put in Omaha – The Good Life gleaned its name from Nebraska’s displaced state slogan – and played with bands Conduits and Oquoa. Fox moved to Portland, OR, worked on solo material, recorded with label-mate Jake Bellows, and started a tape label, Majestic Litter. Drootin-Senseney relocated to Los Angeles with her husband Chris, where they had a couple of kids and formed the band Big Harp, which released two albums. Then life, as it does, took over: Kasher moved around the US, eventually settled in Chicago, and released two Cursive albums as well as two solo albums. 2007’s Help Wanted Nights, conceived as the soundtrack to a screenplay, was a more musically stripped-down affair and presented a bare look at human emotions through characters in a small-town bar.įollowing a tour supporting Help Wanted Nights, and save for a handful of June 2010 shows, the band’s four members quietly moved on to other projects without officially saying goodbye, but with the confident assumption that they’d come back together again. Hailed by Pitchfork, Alternative Press, NYLON, SPIN, and Time Out New York, among others, this album left behind any electronic touches as it chronicled 12 months of a doomed relationship – and the attendant complex feelings – through strains of soaring pop. 2004’s Album Of The Year was the first recorded with the now longtime core band of Kasher, Drootin-Senseney, Fox, and Lewis. 2002’s Black Out saw The Good Life grow into a full band, telling tales of drunken nights and capricious lovers over an evocative blend of electronic and traditional instrumentation. ![]() 2000’s Novena On A Nocturn – recorded essentially as a solo project by Kasher as an outlet for quieter songs that didn’t quite fit with his long-standing band Cursive – was spacious and stirring, glistening with occasional electronic flourishes. The Good Life have never been afraid to switch up their sound, refusing to be ascribed as one thing or another. The gentler, folk-driven pop/rock for which the band is beloved remains (sonic sister album bookends “7 In The Morning” and “Midnight Is Upon Us ” “The Troubadour’s Green Room”), but it is now mixed amongst guitars lines that unspool in a blaze across songs that hit harder and more viscerally (“Everybody,” “Holy Shit”), as well as moments of distorted psychedelia and moody ambience (“Flotsam Locked Into A Groove,” “Diving Bell,” “How Small We Are”). Lewis’s love of classic rock, multi-instrumentalist Ryan Fox’s chaotic approach to melody, Stefanie Drootin-Senseney’s propulsive yet tuneful bass parts, and Kasher’s deft, complementary song writing, the band sparked a vibrant evolution in sound. It is also the first that truly embodies the band as a whole, more so than any previous album. And in some ways, that’s the sweet spot front man and lyricist Tim Kasher inhabits: trying to make sense of this world of ours, and how and why we navigate it the way we do.Įverybody’s Coming Down moves in a new direction musically and, in contrast to The Good Life’s earlier releases, is very much a rock record. Call it a soundtrack to Man’s 21st century existential angst, the album poses cosmic queries, contemplates regrets, questions self-worth, and examines the possibility of living in the moment, when memories are all that we truly take with us. Peter J.Omaha, NE’s The Good Life returns this summer with their first album in eight years, Everybody’s Coming Down. The following year, founding drummer Clint Schnase left Cursive on good terms and was replaced by touring drummer Cornbread Compton, and the band continued onward with its revised lineup, ringing in 2009 with the release of Mama, I'm Swollen. Happy Hollow ultimately arrived in 2006, marking the departure of Cohn but also the inclusion of a brass section, which the band utilized to explore religious contradictions within the context of a fictional Western town. ![]() As the band readied a worthy follow-up album, Saddle Creek issued Difference Between Houses and Homes in August 2005, assembling Cursive's out of print 7"s (including two unreleased songs) into a stopgap compilation. Their most ambitious album to date, The Ugly Organ was hailed for its challenging songwriting, obtuse conceptual scope, and serious lyrical turns. Meanwhile, Cursive were featured on the first 7" in Makato Recordings' yearlong monthly 7" series, and the quintet returned in 2003 with The Ugly Organ. Also notable was the release of another Cursive EP, Burst and Bloom, which added cellist Gretta Cohn to the band's lineup. Novena on a Nocturn, the debut of Kasher's solo project, the Good Life, was released in 2001.
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