5 out of 5

Label: Bandcamp digital release

Producer: Joey Kendall?

Wow, what a perfect single.  Something somewhere I done read called Kendall John Congleton’s protege, and I wouldn’t doubt you if you told me that Johnny produced this.  It has his understanding of beat balance and a thick-ass low end bouncing along, but it’s kept at just the right pitch to not topple into being too upbeat by Kendall’s pleasant singing style – earnest but willing to keep the emo turned down into the mid-range.  Same goes for the structure – for every moment that threatens to go too far into the quirky pop direction, either we strip it back down to that awesome key / drums thing that starts the track or it goes in a different direction with a distortion breakdown.  I’m shaky on the lyrics right now, but there seems to be some fun meta talk about song structure that worked for me – no lines stuck out as eye-rolling.  (Except maybe the title.)

This works great like this.  Kendall’s full album – or a full album of tracks like this – was a bit too poppy cheery, but as a bite-sized single, it’s rather unique and tons of fun.