Sam Champion’s debut effort is a celebration of life in the slow lane. Addressing the familiar post-graduate themes of booze and empty wallets, the rock quartet revels in the simple joy of having nowhere to go. Frontman Noah Chernin delivers a laidback drawl over Pavement-inspired melodies that alternate between hazy alt-country dirges and rollicking party jams.
“I am aggressively lazy,” he sings on the title track, while announcing, “I’m too broke to get drunk” in album closer “Too Broke.” With clinking glasses gracing “Company Dance” and feedback-laden riffs pumping through “TV Fever,” the boys are clearly ready to rock the kegger — unless they are busy wooing a fetching girl in cowboy boots. In “Texas Song,” Chernin offers a tempting invitation to start a domestic partnership in the Lone Star state, while “It’s Getting Late” contains a bittersweet farewell to a woman who is too set in her ways.
Although some of the album’s tracks are too slip-shod for their own good, the aching “All of Our Tomorrows” breaks from the band’s affable slacker disposition and emotes sadness, confusion and craving all at once.
