Vansire - The Modern Western World (2022)

On the grandly-titled The Modern Western World, Minnesota’s Vansire gives us nineteen mostly very brief tracks adding up to under forty-seven minutes of music, jumping across genre boundaries with fluidity and lyrically traveling through all parts of the US and occasionally beyond (you’ll also hear French, Japanese, and Korean lyrics at times). There are jaunty pop cuts like “Kind Of A Nice Time” and the catchy “Next Time In New York”, jazzy efforts like the beautiful “Bryn Mawr All-Stars” and the soulful “Think It Through”, and nocturnal laid-back hip-hop pieces like “Transitions” and the closer “Regroup & Start Anew”. All of this won’t be surprising to fans of Vansire’s previous LP, the 2018 cult classic Angel Youth, which hewed to a similarly varied palette, even if the faux-Americana leanings of the first two songs on this latest effort might give a misleading impression of the road taken here. Sonic diversity aside, the musical quality here is pretty reliably top-notch, and the urbane atmosphere provides a warm golden hour glow. The primary adjustment between the two albums is lyrical. Sure, there’s still plenty of the same basic dream pop musings which dominated Angel Youth: romance, nostalgia, loneliness… But those concerns are now joined by overt references to northwestern wildfires, the disintegration of America, and World War III, among other such subjects. It’s 2022 after all, and even your hazed-out mellow dream pop can’t avoid the prevailing mood of pessimism. All told, though, I’d say The Modern Western World is better for it. As singer Josh Augustin admits in the pretty mid-album tune “Evening Light”, “lately I’ve been far more uninclined, to look you in the eye, to tell you we’ll be fine”. That makes two of us, good sir. It’s always nice to have company.