It’s been a while since I’ve done an album review, so I thought I’d revive this section of the blog during National Poetry Month (because songs can be poems too!) with the latest X Ambassadors album, Townie.
The last XA album I blogged about was Orion (re: one track in particular), which came out in 2019. I wasn’t as into their highly stylized 2021 release, The Beautiful Liar, but with Townie, they’re back to their signature sound.
Most tracks have a significant acoustic component, which mostly I like, but there’s also a sweet, retro, electronic vibe that is somehow simultaneously 80s/90s/00s in the first half with “I’m Not Really Here” and “Rashad.” Frontman Sam Harris gives us some of his trademark falsetto in “Smoke on the Highway” and “No Strings” (the end of which reminds me of “Fear” from VHS) as well as those soaring long notes in tracks like “Women’s Jeans” and “Half-Life” that are reminiscent of what we’ve heard in songs like “Unsteady” from VHS and “History” from Orion.
But what I really loved about this album from the moment I started listening to it is how much it resonates with the small-town (NOT suburb) experience. One of my first thoughts on hearing the opening tracks was, “Wasilla kids could’ve written this” (though I’d extend this sentiment to surrounding areas as well), and that’s not a dig—just a comment on how relatable the content is.
Ithaca, NY, where the Harris brothers grew up, has a population of about 33,000 people. That’s about the same as the “core area” of the Mat-Su Valley (Wasilla + Meadow Lakes + Big Lake + Houston + Palmer), though our population is spread over a larger geographical area. It’s kind of crazy to think people from a place as distant from Alaska as New York could have something in common with us, but what Harris, et al. have written about in these songs proves it.
“Your Town” in particular makes me think of a Wasilla High School teacher I never had, but who I know made a big impact on a lot of people: Dewayne Joehnk. (I went to a different high school, but I did sub for him once as an adult, and probably interviewed him when I was a reporter. Fun fact: he also directed at least one production of Our Town). The song ends with a voicemail from one of Harris’s teachers, Todd Peterson, and the music video starts with a dedication to him as well as an old video of him performing a song in a musical. These are great callbacks to the home recordings throughout VHS, which personalize the albums really well, making us listeners feel a little like we get a peek ‘behind the curtain,’ as it were.
We feel this a bit listening to “(first dam),” too, which has this echo that makes it sound like it was recorded on a phone in a bathroom—but not in a bad way! More like, “homegrown.” The writing style of this track also reminds me a bit of Phoebe Bridgers, who manages to make beautiful, raw songs that are pretty plainspoken in terms of lyrics.
“Sunoco” is a bit like this too, but catchier and definitely one of my favorites from this album. With lines like “Doing donuts in the parking lot,” “I feel like I’ll never leave this place alive,” and “Chili Peppers on the car speakers,” this song is dripping with a familiar teenage nostalgia that us “townies” feel in the best way. It’s definitely an apt opener to the album.
“Fallout” is the only track I’m kind of ‘eh’ about; it has a bit of Gotye (“you didn’t have to cut me off”) sound, which isn’t necessary good or bad, but it also feels a little (I can’t believe I’m saying this because it’s such a cliché in art/music reviews, but it’s the only word I can think of that fits) …derivative.
There are a few clichés scattered throughout, but overall this is a banger album that I would highly recommend to any “townie” in the U.S.
If you’re not in the U.S. though, it’s still great music, especially if you like indie/alternative rock/pop.
Watch/listen to it on YouTube, Spotify, and probably whatever other streaming services are out there. I’ll definitely be getting a hard copy of this one!
And because I will never get over having interviewed Sam’s brother Casey once upon a time, here’s a link to the PDF copy of an article I wrote about the band coming to the Alaska State Fair in 2016.
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum 