Sundowner: Four One Five Two (2007)-Constantine Koutsoutis
Sundowner: Four One Five Two (2007)
By Constantine Koutsoutis
There really aren’t enough albums like this one out there. Sure, a glut of “punk rock frontmen playing acoustic folk and country music” is available pretty easily, but this is a little bit different. Chris McCaughan, who you might know as the guitarist and vocalist from Chicago’s The Lawrence Arms, is the brains behind Sundowner and Four One Five Two. And holy shit, what a brain. Incredible poetry covering almost everything from lost love to personal nervous crises to wandering cold city streets lost in thoughts, Chris’s lyrics are incredible, a testament to his songwriting abilities that I really think goes unappreciated in his work in the Lawrence Arms. Songs like the sweet “This War Is Noise” and “Steal Your Words”, and the very personal “You Self Portrait” (probably my number-one favorite song out of the whole bunch because as a neurotic mess, I connect with it on almost every level), for example, are just three songs on this album alone that totally blow any Lawrence Arms album out of the water. And with a voice that you can hear straining with honesty and effort, Chris manages to take you with him down into songs that are about more than just the clichés of punk rock or even “folk punk”.
We get it, you drink a lot of whiskey and are all alone and broke in life man, get over it. From people who get it right like Chuck Ragan of the legendary post-hardcore Hot Water Music, there’s about a dozen or so guys from bad hardcore bands who think that owning a Woody Guthrie CD and an acoustic guitar makes them a folk hero in the making. Nice try, hotshots.
With Sundowner on the other hand, it’s more intricate, a mix of diary-esque honesty and a willingness to not get bound by the conventions of strictly-acoustic songs. There’s no assumption of folk airs, just an attempt at trying to sing a song. If anything, it’s more pop thank folk, and these days, honest pop music is pretty rare. I’ve listened to this album almost every day since I managed to get my hands on it, it’s that fucking good. Plain and simple. A man, his guitar, and occasional backing up with strings, an acoustic bass, and a some more guitar courtesy of some friends like Jenny Choi (of pop duo Sanawon) and Chris’s Larry Arms bandmate Neil Hennessy. What more do you really need? Well, a copy of this shit, that’s for sure.
Copyright C 2007 Constantine Koutsoutis
January 31st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
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