I know Summer People consists of 8 people. I only know their first names, no last name is to be found anywhere on the album or on their site. All I know is that these guys have been active previously in acts such as Fire When Ready, Mysterious Mysteries and the Trip Wilsons. None of these bands rings a bell with me. Is all the secrecy a way of saying the music comes first or is it some sort of a gimmick? If it’s the latter, it’s a good one since I just devoted the entire first paragraph of my review to it.
Anyway, “Good Problems” is Summer People’s debut full-length and was recorded completely live. That means there are no overdubs here and Pro Tools weren’t involved either. No small feat but they pulled it off with a great result. Opener “Two Hearted River” sounds like a rowdy alt-country singalong, but then “Shallow Water People” kicks in and it’s a whole other ballgame with its hard-driving yet melancholic urgency. Then the band crunches out “Broken Bones” and you find yourself in a bar punding away the whiskey bottle in front of you while a local band is cranking out some mean-sounding blues. By the time you’re ready to finish off the bottle and start feeling sorry for yourself, that’s when Summer People show themselves at their most gentle with “The Other Side”, a mellow acoustic track with dual male/female vocals.
It’s indie rock in its broadest sense and it’s really hard to explain. But I do like the album. The only negative thing I can say about it is that I have no idea where “” fits into the whole. It’s ten minutes of ambient noise and basically ten minutes of my life I will never get back. Other than that I can only recommend “Good Problems”.
Score: 7 out of 10
http://www.redleaderrecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/summerpeople
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