Bummer Year

Singer Tyler Jordan and the rest of his Austin band create a kind of meat-and-potatoes songcraft that brings to mind a blend of John Doe and Jackson Browne, in only the best ways, with echoes of Tom Verlaine and Paul Westerberg. The songs are built from guitar and vocals, in the original recipe, and Jordan sings to life as it is lived, without too much poetic interference. I love couplets like “our strength is in our numbers, in the streets is where we show them / you force someone to listen to you when they’re fuckin’ scared,” and someone in this band knows how to play guitar and how to use a chorus pedal. The beauty of daily life and a daily sense of beauty are both here.