Vaguess Thanks//No Thanks LP
I hope we all realize how incredibly lucky we are to have a musician in the world as consistent and prolific as Vinny Earley. Between frequent touring and myriad side projects, he still manages to bring us new material from his long-running solo project annually, thus giving sad sack aging punks like me something to look forward to in this crummy world. The melancholic Nothing’s Secret from 2022 was an almost meditative collection of earworms, and while there are still some excellent weepers on display here such as “Texas Clouds,” Earley also dips a wing in the waters of synth pop and garage punk with the evergreen sentiment of contemporary existential dread, like closer “2 Car Garage.” The genre-hopping isn’t a parlor trick either, and it all comes from Earley’s strong voice as a songwriter. This is a cohesive work from someone who seems to never run out of ideas and whose frequent output strengthens his work rather than dries up the well. In summation: god save Vinny Earley, may his reign last a thousand years.