Goodnight House is the outlet of Portland’s Joel Lane. Over lush musical backdrops evoking emotion-forward artists like Sufjan Stevens and Pinegrove, Lane articulates stories of transition, relationships, and empathy. Lane’s melodies unify a diverse array of sonic flavours, one minute evoking the raucous distortion of Hum, the next whispering confessions over fingerpicked guitar a la Mark Kozelek. ‘Good consumers’ is their latest album.
This album tricked me! The intro was so heavy that I thought I was going to listen to something like the Deftones or some prog rock like Porcupine Tree. Note to self: read the damn press release, Spiros!
Nevertheless, I liked what followed, and above all, the very expressive and heartfelt vocals of Joel. I like the chord progressions very much, they are not formulaic, and in songs like ‘Affirmation’ I can definitely get my contemporary prog rock fix and finally realise I wasn’t completely crazy to get such vibes from the intro. The electric guitar clean arpeggios, the distorted riffs, stacks of vocals, and great soundscapes created by slide guitars, harmonics, maybe also some synths, or perhaps all of the above, create a hazy sound that could be described as shoegaze, but to be fair to the artist (no offence to shoegaze lovers by the way!), it is much more complex than that. Whereas in shoegaze, the reverbs and delays assume the role of the protagonist much more than the musical parts and arrangements, in ‘Good consumers’, the music is complex enough to carry the songs, and consequently, there is more density in the melodies, chord progressions, and all the parts. The drums are definitely secondary, as this is very guitar-centric, but still quite inventive in their beats. ‘My Girls’ is probably my favourite song on the album; I could easily enjoy an a cappella version of it.
In general, the album is quite diverse in its sound palette, choice of styles, and overall vibe. Based solely on my musical references, I can hear everything from Nirvana and Porcupine Tree to Muse, Radiohead, Devin Townsend, and even The Beatles.
Again, this is just my vocabulary to describe what I am hearing, in terms of feeling, sounds, textures, and music complexity. Nicely surprised by the female vocals on ‘You know I know you know’ and the drunken-Soundgarden-ish vibe in ‘Existence’. Another lovely surprise on ‘Please don’t stay out any longer’ with the “arcade game” sounds in the background (yes, this is a scientific and technical term!) and in general, a brave amount of variety in this album, enough to make me listen to this album a couple of times to digest it all. Well done, I am quite a spoilt listener and I stayed invested throughout the whole album!
Written by Spiros Maus
