Remembering The Rockets (PINK CASSETTE) [Cassette] (ONLINE ORDER ONLY)

On its third full-length Remembering The Rockets, Strange Ranger continues to excel at translating the way intimacy can feel so overwhelmingly gigantic. With a dozen releases across its 10 years as a band, the Philly-via-Portland-via-Montana group has traversed genres, moods and textures while maintaining one important throughline: an exploration of closeness. 2016’s double-LP Rot Forever was a 72-minute freakout that paired Built To Spill grandiosity with early Modest Mouse intensity. On the 2017 follow-up Daymoon (Tiny Engines), Strange Ranger hung up the distortion pedals and traded caustic yelps for Alex G-esque croons. It was a synth-adorned, insular bedroom-pop record that floated rather than soared, and the band opted for lyrical impressionism over the hyper-specific outbursts of the debut. Farontman Isaac Eiger’s writing style reads like a loose assembly of quotes from conversations he’s had with others spliced with his own, private introspections. He is a modern master of conveying the anxiety and uncertainty of growing older through a mixture of childhood nostalgia and interpersonal tidbits. There’s plenty of that on Remembering The Rockets , but after all of these years of singing about Eiger’s own coming-of-age story, the album approaches the quandary of whether he’ll ever be able to impart that process—through which he’s reaped so much artistic joy and curiosity—onto someone else. For a topic as severe as ecological collapse affecting his own parental aspirations—as well as other melancholy ruminations on loneliness, the passing of time, and the complications of emotional intimacy—Strange Ranger still ended up making the lushest, smoothest, and most pleasingly hypnotic album of its career. 01. Leona 02. Sunday 03. Ari Song 04. Athens, GA 05. Message To You 06. Nothing Else To Think About 07. Rockets 08. Ranch Style Home 09. Pete’s Hill 10. Beneath The Lights 11. Planes In Front Of The Sun 12. ‘02 13. Living Free 14. Cold Hands Warm Heart

• Released: 8/9/19
• Format Detail: Cassette Pink variant
• Format: Cassette
• Genre: Rock