The Stylist

Album review

Put simply, Kelley Stoltz doesn't make bad records. Over the course of many, many years, he's been a reliable source of top notch guitar pop that weaves in post-punk, power pop, psychedelia, and almost 32 other flavors of indie, all fed through his everydude lyrical filter. It's no different with 2022's The Stylist, a record that Stoltz himself has called transitional, but really it's one that slides perfectly into his catalog right alongside his best work. It even works a little bit like a greatest hits selection, touching on different sounds he's delved into over the course of his career and delivering first rate examples of each "We Grew So Far Apart" is rambling outer space garage rock that juxtaposes sparking synths with jangling guitars, "It's a Cold World" is a lovely piano-led ballad that has heavy Nillsson vibes, "Into the Night" conjures up a soft rock take on Echo & the Bunnymen-style psychedelia, "Wrong Number" has the feel of something recorded around the time of Circular Sounds, only with some '90s Jeff Lynne production touches. Other tracks pull off this neat trick of updating the past with a new twist. "Change" sounds like the kind on minor key, mid tempo introspective track that might have been on any recent Stoltz album, only here he gives it a spacey sound reminiscent of mid-70s Steve Miller, right down to the cascading "Fly Like an Eagle''-style synths. To go along with this kind of quasi-nostalgic feel, many of the songs have lyrics that take a look back at the past. On "You Had to Be There" he digs into unpleasant memories and balances them against jazz chords and swooning synths; it's less painful on "Your Name Escapes Me" as he catalogs a few of the people who made an impact on his life for a moment and faded away, including one he met at a New Bomb Turks in-store in 1996. The song captures perfectly the sensation of having memories flicker past and getting a tiny twinge of something close to sadness that stings as they do. Almost all of The Stylist conjures up that feeling, even the loping space cowboy track "Is There Anything That's Better Than This, Babe?, which feels like a novelty at first, but really is just another version of the bittersweet nostalgia that Stoltz does so well. After so many years covering the same ground, one might think he'd lose a little something off his fastball, as so many artists do. That maybe he'd start repeating himself and churning out bland imitations of his earlier work, but that's definitely not the case. The Stylist is hooky, imaginative, and full of songs that really mean something, both to Stoltz and those lucky enough to hear them.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo