We first came across Massachusetts trio Constellation Myths back in 2022 with their take on the Constantines classic, ‘Young Lions’. A version which “strip[ped] the taut menace from the original in favour of a half-paced country tone,” as we put it. “what was gruff fervour is recast as wistful reflection, though the track is no less emotive as a consequence.” The track was a suitable introduction to a band who draw on both Americana and seventies singer-songwriter styles as well as contemporary indie rock. 2021 full-length Everything and Time utilised this style for decidedly introspective ends, exploring themes of memory, nostalgia and the passing of time with a sound capable of both beauty and foreboding. The project’s forthcoming follow-up album, The Cost of Living, maintains this stylistic foundation but switches the direction of its focus. No longer centred inwards but instead at the outside world.
The result is what the band call “a series of vignettes and character sketches that examine agency, belief, and the tensions between the natural and the human-built environment,” all delivered with the trademark nuance of the Constellation Myths sound. A record which began during the depths of the pandemic and only grew more timely in the volatile aftermath. “The songs that make up The Cost of Living are preoccupied with things very much at the heart of our current social and political crisis,” they continue, “class resentments, petty jealousies, false prophets, vigilante justice, the warping of our shared sense of reality by a toxic online culture.”
Lead single and opening track ‘Spare Room’ provides a glimpse into the album. A slow-burning, downbeat meditation on separation and aging which nevertheless carries a certain warmth, tapping into a long lineage on down-your-their-luck country singers to locate a certain wistful charm within the loneliness. The song builds as it progresses, leaning into the small comforts of such a feeling, culminating in an affirming, harmony-laden finale as though to remind itself life continues in even the wake of great change.