If pressed, I'd tell you that I think Lumpy's honest-to-goodness place in this world is in the corner of a wood-paneled den somewhere in the Midwest, a guitar slung around his shoulder and plugged into a mini-amp, shouting out friends between songs he penned on his lunch break and talking about what an honor is to be opening for Joe Gittleman on this leg of his solo tour... I also would expect that, in a perfect world, he'd have at least one record co-signed by Rosenstock's Quote Unquote Records... But you know, sometimes the stars don't align as they should, and the former scenario, while not precluding the latter, is a whole lot more likely. What I hope you've gathered from this winding little farrago so far is that Lumpy, aka Bryan Highhill, is a musician with a low-key, home-spun, help-you-move-on-a-Saturday-no-questions-asked, nice guy sort of vibe, and a busky, tow-tone-tinted, pop-punk sound complimented by a semi-flat affect, a vocal delivery that dispatches a peppering of irony amongst fistfuls of earnest affection, ie all of the approachability of Greg Katz sans the ego-suffocating sag of sarcastic-self-awareness. His self-titled is a collection of songs that he's played for years, solo, and with the assistance of friends, for which he's finally got around to recording with a full band. His ska influences are pretty inescapable here and come out in a big way on tracks like the mopey but cautiously mirthful "House Plant," the upstroke-tickle-fight "Got a Plan," and the dubby, sun-set stained coaster "Stickler," with his two-tone tendencies emerging not just in his selection of guitar licks, but also his thrilling trumpet trills and the accompaniment of Matty Harris's boisterous sax playing. Other tracks throw the lever and jump lanes into down-tempo indie rock like the buzzy-fog of "Brainal Fatigue," which lands somewhere the aisle of Rentals-esque pawned but still serviceable spinners, while closer "Never Saw this Coming" has more than a few grams of a penny-loafer-pinching, heavy mod-molded gusto in its tank, especially near the end. This might be Lumpy's first full-effort recording with this particular set of musicians, but from my vantage point, things are already going rather smoothly. Hopefully, he'll pick it up* (ie full band recordings) again soon.
