Joe gave me the newest album by indie-pop duo Mates of State for my birthday, back in June. The album, Re-arrange Us has been out since May, so this is less of a review and more of a love letter. Because now, in the days counting down to the close of summer, I have a crush on this album and don’t really want to stop listening to it. Even though I tend to lean towards more moody, even melancholic, indie-folk-rock kinds of tunes, while driving around on starry summer nights, I can’t seem to find a reason to take the damn cd out of my car player.
It’s just so damn fun. I can’t think of the last album that reminded me that pop can be poetic. It is well-crafted and smart, both lyrically and musically. Maybe it’s just the timing and how much I am enjoying this summer – my first in a long time, living so close to the ocean and enjoying the simplicity of being outdoors again – but the music is providing a perfect soundtrack. It makes a certain kind of sense in it’s lightness and I find that listening to it actively encourages me not to take myself so seriously. From the moment that the first deliciously catchy track, Get Better, starts: “Forget your politics for a while/Let the color schemes arrive”… it’s ok for me to be taking the back roads home just because it’s a prettier drive, it’s ok for me to go to the beach for an hour to read or write in my journal, before work and it’s ok for me to drink entirely too much iced coffee and then be hyper and wanting to do cartwheels in the sunshine. It’s all ok. And that is how it should be in the summertime.
