Nicolay/ the Hot at Nights - Glaciers

Vinyl LP pressing. 2018 release. Glaciers is straight ride music - there isn't one song on this album that won't have it's listening experience improved by playing it in a car going nowhere in particular - and this, too, isn't a coincidence. The firm of Boerner, Baglio, Douglas & Nic have been playing and touring together in various guises for years, refreshing their curriculum at every opportunity. There is always groove and lilt and a slick, knowing humor in their music, but it is always carried and earned through powerful musicianship. Most importantly, there is always reach, always an expansion of their musical agenda through complex arrangements and broad compositional risks. This has been true over a handful of albums from both The Hot At Nights and Nicolay independently, but never has their reach been as long as it is on Glaciers. There is a freedom to this album bordering on thematic, a sense of narrative pull that wants to take you somewhere as a movement. "Now The Coast Is Clear" and "Tell Me Something New" are both deceptively laconic songs, hinting at the sonic scope of the album to come, but without much in the way of bells or whistles. They rely solely on muscular songwriting here, with a tone that is vast. If landscapes could be made into soundscapes, the first three songs on Glaciers are Exhibits A-C.