There is a bar and venue here in Chicago that used to have a feline employee named Radley. Radley sadly passed a few years back after a storied career of mousing, bouncing, coaster-shuffleboard-playing, and witnessing enough amazing live music to fill nine lives and then some. I'm pretty partial to pretty kitties in mascot roles (I mean, Jesus, look at the banner of this blog!), and it was the opportunity to potentially meet Radley that first tempted me to attend a show at said fabled venue. Alas, Radley and I never crossed paths (not in this life at least- although I did have a dream about him once...), but that hasn't deterred me from continuing to look into just about anything music-related that has a fuzzy, domesticated killing machine* as its public face- which (confession time!) is the reason I picked up Riley!'s Keep Your Cool- it's truly just a bonus that it came out on Counter Intuitive (who I like a lot) and that the band plays a super impassioned brand of 5th wave emo (something I'm also into). What gets me from the get-go and keeps me in this album's sway through its entire runtime is just how well the band manages to sell the drama that propels these songs- regardless of how mundane or trivial the slight, squabble, or snafu, I unquestionably accept that vocalist Ryan Bluhmm is going to shambles over it. Their dynamic and uncompromising performance can overwhelm you suddenly with a flash flood of emotions, catching you off guard with its sweetness before tackling and tossing you aloft in a raw-nerve twisting typhoon of piss and vinegar. It's a performance that very much matches the subject matter of these songs- we've all felt ourselves losing our cool a bit when a friend or significant other won't explain why they're mad at us, or someone disrespects you out of the blue and treats you like a disposable known quantity, but it can also be enough just have a shitty boss you dread seeing every day- more often than not, life feels tailor-made to make each and every one of us lose our god damn marbles, and it's therefore vital to have consolatory performances, like the ones on Keep Your Cool, to vindicate our ire while reassuring us that processing our thoughts and emotions in a manner that dissuads us from social self-immolation (as compelling as it might seem in the moment) is likely the best course of action. Beyond Ryan's vocal contributions and gold-standard lines like "brace yourself for the impact / close your eyes and let it go black / left the light on, thought you'd come back / eat your heart out, are you full yet!," the group has mastered a taut and rhythmic acuity for tension and release- mesmerizing the listener with sparkly guitars, balanced-but-frothy bass-line, and galloping, kick-skip drum patterns, all of which combine to contribute to the feeling that you're being pushed over the edge of a cliff by a bulldozer along with a smattering of debris from your so-called-life which you have to jerry together to construct a makeshift parachute before you Wile E Coyote all over the pavement- every near escape and ankle splintering landing is imminently met by yet another big wave or riffs and cresting hooks which drop over you like a hungry vulture and sweep you away again almost against your will. A consent calamity that still somehow manages to feel convivial. Life demands that we maintain a certain level of composure to be considered for a place amongst polite society, but when a record like Keep Your Cool is on, cracking the seal on your pent-up catharsis is not just expected; it's unavoidable.
It actually makes perfect sense, Counter Intuitive Records.