Like so many albums dropping early this year, Little Green House has been completed for a while. Originally, the plan was for Anxious to spend most of 2020 on the road building upon the Never Better buzz, but the pandemic instead allowed them ample time to craft their debut. Thus, the band wrote songs and cut demos in the basement of Allen’s mother’s home — the little green house of the title — and then, in the summer of 2020, they hit the studio with Chris Teti of The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, their Connecticut emo forebear. The resulting record is remarkably accomplished and versatile for such a young band. The songwriting is tight and dynamic, the production clean yet visceral. Even in its weaker moments, like the borderline saccharine acoustic ballad “Wayne,” there’s usually something to love (in that case, a flurry of “ba ba ba” backing vocals that owe a lot to Melucci’s late-breaking Beach Boys obsession — and, come to think of it, to Death Cab).
The two guest features on Little Green House exemplify this band’s versatility: Anxious are capable of bowling you over with furious crystalline beauty, as on “Let Me” with Fiddlehead’s Pat Flynn, but they’re just as capable of reining in their explosive tendencies for a plaintive midtempo stunner like “You When You’re Gone” with Stella Branstool. These guys are still close enough to their teenage years that they’re mining them for lyrical content without a nostalgia buffer — there’s literally a track called “Growing Up Song” — and they harness that crackling emotion impressively. But the more chilled-out numbers are equally appealing, which indicates Anxious will still be a formidable unit if that youthful vigor ever cools off. If only there was a word to express my eager anticipation for their future…
Little Green House is out 1/21 on Run For Cover.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Jana Horn’s Optimism
• Silverbacks – Archive Material
• Jake Xerxes Fussell’s Good And Green Again
• Years & Years’ Night Call
• 2 Chainz’s Dope Don’t Sell Itself
• Boris’ W
• Yard Act’s The Overload
• Miles Kane’s Change The Show
• Janis Ian’s The Light At The End Of The Line
• Paul Oakenfold’s Shine On
• Michael Rother & Vittoria Maccabruni’s As Long As The Light
• John Mellencamp’s Strictly A One-Eyed Jack
• Palace’s Shoals
• King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s remix album Butterfly 3001
• Boy Harsher’s The Runner soundtrack
• The Yellowjackets soundtrack
• The compilation Paper Route EMPIRE Presents: Long Live Dolph
• The third chapter of Beach House’s Once Twice Melody
January 18, 2022 at 11:30PM
https://www.stereogum.com/2173039/anxious-little-green-house/reviews/album-of-the-week/
Album Of The Week: Anxious Little Green House - Stereogum
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