Tom Randolph

He's back. I'm three complete and several partial listens in. The completes were yesterday at work with headphones, yesterday evening, alone, loud in the living room, and this morning outside romping with man's best friend, again (really good) headphones. My first reaction was fairly meh. But like I said, he's back. Or his muse is. Not sure I've ever actually teared up over the cumulative awesomeness of a studio record, but I did just now out on the lawn with the chuckit as that shot of jack poured on the parking lot replaced my mental image of something else he saw spilled in the parking lot by a guy in a Santa Claus suit during the Joad tour. But I digress - like his great records, themes, characters, images, musical motifs... reveal their layers everytime the needle drops again, and the sonic journey is a new great adventurous conversation each time. And I'm so grateful. Not gonna compare to other artists or prior albums... just wanna shout it from the mountaintops that he's finally found his late game inner artist, and I selfishly have new hope that as we walked through my teen and early adult years deep in conversation, we may do so again in these decades.