I used to think of rock music as "get-out" music. Music that you would need to hear in a bar or outdoor festival, or at the very least blasting at you from a car stereo while transporting yourself from home to either of these destinations (or Walgreens). That was pre-pandemic. Now I experience most music (rock and otherwise) in the privacy of my own home. I don't hate it. I might even like it that way.
I'm a little ashamed to admit that I acclimated particularly well to the conditions of quarantine. It was nice being able to avoid social obligations and the tedium of public life and hide out at my apartment for a couple of months (years!). I almost became indistinguishable from my cats during this period- lounging during the day, eating when I wanted to, avoiding thoughts of going outside even while staring out the window, and napping when I felt like it. I definitely thought, more than once, "I could get used to this."
Even though I'm now technically allowed to reintegrate myself into the general population, I still find myself moored to the couch more often than not, AC tussling my hair, while I glower down the content tube displayed on my laptop, comforted by its cold but welcoming glow. It's in this state that I am currently writing about Spring Silver's second LP I Could Get Used to This- prone, with my laptop on my stomach, Twitter open and actively scrolling while a stream of swordfights from '80s anime flashes and sparks in the corner of my eye via YouTube.
I could focus on one thing and keep my focus there, but why? It's the middle of the night and this is how I unwind. Granted, this is how I am during the day too, but time is a flat circle, blah blah blah, you get the picture. I am off the clock now and don't have anything to distract me, nag at my attention, and pry me away from gorging myself on culture. And Maryland producer and rising rock idol Spring Silver, is certainly the kind of culture that I am digging at the moment.
Their sophomore record I Could Get Used to This has a familiar rock aesthetic for those who recall what alternative rock radio was like back in '10, when Fall Out Boy had a regular album cycle and people were still coming to terms with the fact that Weezer was continuing to make chart-topping music post-Pinkerton- giant, titanic power-chords that shake the dust out of the rafters and blind your senses with adrenaline, swirling in a symbiotic détente with grandiose declarations of tenderness and bitter rebuke, caught like a ribbon around the horns of savagely poised vocal melodies as they press against you with pressure and purpose.
There is a gravity to these tracks that gives them the quality of a carnival ride, where a key change can send your guts into your throat and the drop of a groove can leave all your blood flowing up through your neck and pooling between your years, straining to escape through your orifices like kool-aid out the nozzle of a super soaker.
There is more to the record than just big riffs and breath-stealing prose too. Sping Silver, apparently wanted to be a house producer in a previous stage of their career, and the muscle memory of that past-life erupts into the fore in the grooves and funky finesse of "My Feelings on the Matter" as well as through the dubby effects selections and filters of the wavy kraut-crunch and full-body workout of "Fetch." Elsewhere, the urban alternative country and chamber pop of "Saymour's Stop" sounds like it could have been a standout on an old Bloodshot Records comp, while "Plead Insanity" sounds like it could be the subject of a custody battle between The Rentals, Wolf Parade, and Eve 6.
What shocks my hermetic mind the most about the diversity of this album's sounds is the finite attention to detail, a level of attentiveness to tuning, production and crafting of experience that is reminiscent of the extreme dimension of care exhibited on an album like Dismemberment Plan's Emergency and I or Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News.
Immersing myself in something as vibrant and creative as I Could Get Used to This has certainly got me questioning my shut-in status. I'm definitely feeling like I should give this whole "human interaction" thing another go. If something as lovely as this album can come out of a world as messy and complicated as the one we live in, then maybe there is hope for us all to find a place in it to learn, grow, and prosper. Or, at the very least, I might run into someone who appreciates this album as much as I do- that would be worth the excursion for sure. Maybe such a chance meeting will develop into a lasting friendship- or at the very least, they'll let me meet their cat.
