East Nashville band *repeat repeat returned to new music platforms on May 31 with the release of their sophomore LP, Glazed. Produced by The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, the album is a continuation and maturation of their alt-pop approach, exploring new frontiers of sound and style through catchy hooks and fuzzy-yet-clean, beat-driven tracks. On October 1, they’ll support Modest Mouse and The Black Keys at Bridgestone Arena.
“With this album, we wanted to be really flexible and open to whatever new opportunities and ideas were going to come our way,” lead singer Jared Corder told Billboard in March 2019.
With Carney at the helm, Kristyn Corder, Jared’s wife and band keyboardist/background vocalist, and Jared took their retro-charged pop rock to new sonic exaltations. Glazed sounds more expansive than the band’s 2017 debut, Floral Canyon, with similar musical stylings but equipped with more studio tools. While the instrumentation in Floral Canyon was rather contained, made up of guitar, drums, vocals, and occasional synth pad, the new record extends the creative reach of these sounds. The album’s opener, “Hi, I’m Waiting,” comes crashing in with a steady soft rock drum beat which lasts the entire song — it’s the various guitar leads, treated vocals, and synthesizers which build a sophisticated, surf rock-like anthem on top of it.
Other tracks, like “Can’t Shake This,” rely on a building tension; verses with a tight, delayed rhythm guitar which open up in the choruses. “Fortunate One” achieves a distinct, early 2000s geek-rock sound to an anachronistic degree, taking cues from bands like Bowling for Soup and Fountains of Wayne — with crisp production which brings it forward to 2019.
All in all, it seems *repeat repeat have come into their own, answering the question they posed in Floral Canyon: “How much can we say, and how creative can we be, with these age-old genres?” For Jared and Kristin, the sky’s the limit.
