The Daily Spin, May 15
Pinegrove | Montclair
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: Montclair (2023)
Artist: Pinegrove
Link:
A band that no longer seems to exist, Pinegrove are a classic feature in the world of indie rock, bordering on Americana and new folk with the sort of abandon that made so much of their work the focus of critical acclaim. With their announcement in 2022 that the band would likely no longer exist as Pinegrove in most senses, I figured that was the termination of their careers and assumed that I wouldn’t be seeing anything more from them, but here we are.
As a sort of “best of”, it’s understandable that this will rate more highly than a substantial portion of Pinegrove’s actual discography, only further aided by the live nature of this album. Indie rock is one of those genres that excels in live situations, letting the raw nature of unfiltered vocals over unsteady instrumentals pour oft weighty emotion into songs where in studio sessions they’re muted.
In the same way you hear wavers in the vocals and in the guitar, you hear the backing noise of a crowd, people feeling music the way it should always be felt. Nothing more beautiful than that.
Rating: 9.1/10
Best Tracks: Size of the Moon; Rings; Aphasia
Worst Tracks: Alarmist; Dotted Line