Goodbye Max a the bedroom pop project from Philadelphia, who is releasing a self-titled album via our good friends at Fox Food Records. On their Bandcamp, the person behind the project says they aim to “get to the heart of [their] emotions without overcomplicating anything,” and this sums up the essence of these simple, sincere songs. Drawing on influences such as Alex G and Hovvdy, Goodbye Max makes introspective DIY pop songs that prove it’s possible to conjure an emotive atmosphere with no more than an acoustic guitar and a USB microphone.
The album is said to be about “memories, hanging on to them, and being afraid to lose them,” and each track possesses the tension of this mindset. They’re an attempt to remember and appreciate what has been, without being consumed and held back by the prospect of losing it. The result is earnest and vulnerable, as displayed by opener ‘If You Can Even Hear Me’, a disarmingly straightforward and sad song that pairs gentle guitar with bummed-out vocals and some spare synths. “My head hurts, my heart hurts, my blood hurts” the narrator sings, “Why’s a life gotta hurt?”
The compassionate tone of ‘The Rest Is a Lie’ fades into ‘Seventeenth’, a track devoid of vocals per se, though a spoken word sample emanates from the ambience of chirping crickets and reflective synths. The effect is one of wide-open space, like listening to a midnight answerphone message while gazing through the window of some isolated motel. Taking the theme of memory literally, ‘Old Photos’ is almost an Talons’-esque account of scrolling through pictures of the past on websites and hard drives, lost moments suspended in data, informational ghosts able to haunt you at your convenience.
‘Automatic/Slow Down’ is ostensibly a love song, although one that’s spiked with fear of loss and the unstoppable march of time, before closer ‘And Who Am I Now?’ provides a suitably contemplative instrumental outro. The track is a fitting conclusion to what is something of a magical album, a fundamentally small and personal sound that somehow manages to open up great spaces, pockets outside of time and space where the lonely can reside and recuperate.