“at once pensively miserable and unhurriedly easygoing…heightened by Rice’s tragically wry way of writing about life’s woes”

Now Rice is back with a new record, Hurricane Alaska, one which sees a marked departure from his previous releases. Formerly a primarily bedroom folk sorta guy, he has decided to plug in his instruments and go electric, utilising his knack for melody to make some pretty killer lo-fi garage rock songs. The result turns out something like a fun blend of classic rock and lo-fi slacker, complete with folk and country undertones, languid guitars licking around the collection of twelve songs which are alternatively catchy and energetic and swayingly cool.

‘Console’ is perhaps the stand out track, with its squealing sunshiney guitars and twitchy lulls of verses, which build and build into carefree bursts.

“If you ask me how I am I’ll probably lie.
Just because I’ve never been the kind of guy
to share the weight of his problems”

‘Eight Stories’ is so laid back its pretty much sprawled on the ground (“What’s the point in sleeping ’til the afternoon? What’s the point in waking so soon?”), while ‘Destroy’ is a change of pace with its acoustic guitar and is more akin to previous Joplin Rice releases. ‘Catapult’ has an easygoing summery vibe, with breezy guitar lines and flowing melodic vocals, and ‘Clear & Present’ has restrained lulls and bursts of stormy lo-fi guitars. Penultimate track ‘Rocket’ sees some pretty impressive shredding, before ‘Brothers’ closes on an acoustic note, with passionately earnest vocals and lyrics which are pretty gloomy before a slight chink of something in the final lines:

“but if you look close enough
there’s a pull behind the push
and a gentle certainty
that existed before me”

The whole thing has an endearing homemade feeling, which is not to say the production values are poor, just that it sounds warm and fuzzy and close. You can get Hurricane Alaska on a pay-what-you-want basis via the Joplin Rice bandcamp page. Also, if you haven’t already then grab a cassette of his precious album via the folks at Practice Records.

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