An Ode to Autumn

Written By: Gavin Kennedy 

Edited By: Hope Christy

The Backseat Lovers is a Utah-based indie rock group known for their creative, often thematically empty, earworms that have captivated Instagram posts and TikToks alike. Of their two LPs (three if you count their 2018 “EP” Elevator Days - which I do), their 2022 album titled Waiting to Spill is much lesser known. However, Waiting to Spill is a showcase of all the band’s best qualities. The album explores the concept of grieving your childhood–more specifically, a version of yourself that no longer exists. These thematic values might make you believe that this is an inherently sad project, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

 Sonically, this album scratches the same itch of their other work in terms of meticulous tension-and-release planning, executed in their modern indie-rock style. This, coupled with nostalgic fall vibes injected directly into the project–from the lyrics, to the album cover, to the soundscape–makes this three-year-old album a perfect listen this fall. 

Allow me to expand on the production for a second. This album is set apart from the mainstream, pop-esque sound of their other projects with the extremely apparent influences– specifically shoegaze, with hints of folk and garage rock. The imperfections of the latter two, mixed with the soundscape of the former, create a sonically mesmerizing project unlike anything I've heard from groups and artists adjacent to The Backseat Lovers in the music world.

 Some production decisions in this album make absolutely no sense, but the context in which they’re set make them awe-inspiring. For instance, on the track “Growing/Dying,” after an intro where simulated radio static flips through different parts of the song you’re about to hear, the frontman’s vocals come in panned so far forward it makes the band sound like a Ricky Montgomery song. Even so, this choice is somehow contextualized to sound “normal” through the brilliant production of David Greenbaum.

In a lyrical sense, the album starts with brutally intimate guitar strumming, fading in with indiscernible background sounds on the lead-off track “Silhouette.” The first and only lyrics of this song layer over the background as Joshua Harmon sings: “Wait / Wait for the day / Stay / Stay for the pain / Run / Run while you can / While you are still a silhouette of a man.” 

Songs like the aforementioned “Growing/Dying,” “Close Your Eyes,” and “Slowing Down” offer a beautifully ambient soundscape that utilizes modern rock instrumentation in creative ways. These three songs are specifically for the tension-and-release junkies such as myself, letting you feel like you are physically breathing with the music as it plays in your ears. 

Three other songs– “Follow the Sound,” “Words I Used” (both predominantly utilizing piano), and “Snowbank Blues” (featuring bouncy acoustic guitar plucking)–feel hauntingly out of place. These songs meaningfully expand upon the albums themes, containing lyrics such as “Every morning's such a let down / Every memory put my foot down / oh Stands up taller / And if I could cash in for silence / If my pride could let me ask for silence / silence,” and “Wish I could roll the windows down / But the snow has swallowed up our little town / I know you had to leave / But you didn't have the right to take the sun / You stole it in my sleep.” Only upon reading these lyrics do you realize how heartbreaking they are because of their shroud in the Backseat Lover’s usual sound, revamped in a contemporary setting. 

The final track of this album, "Viciously Lonely,” is easily the best of the LP and arguably the only song to outwardly and bluntly expose the true thematic value of the project. While the rest of the tracks feel alive and interconnected in a way that feels like you’re breathing with the music through a purposeful push-and-pull, they still span a wide range of musical styles. Somehow, this tension unifies an album that is, in reality, composed of very different sounds from song to song.

The final track, however, summarizes this as a seemingly coda-like finish that sounds like the way a pumpkin spice latte tastes. It consists of the slow strumming of Joshua Harmon’s guitar and his soothing vocals, mixed with the brush-and-splash taps of Juice Welsh’s drumming, all overlaid by Jonas Swanson’s brilliant piano soundscape. This song feels like a dying breath. The track is building itself up and breaking itself apart again in a mesmerizing way that brilliantly echoes the lyrics. Eventually, after one last attempt to keep the beat going, the song falls apart one last time, accompanying the lyrics  “All the flags are halfway down the poles / So why are the dogs still barking at the fireworks show?” The line portrays itself as a prechorus, but nothing follows.

The track, and therefore the album, end with the narrator seemingly walking away from the microphone, as a water drain spills onto the floor in the distance. The flags are at half-mast–so why are they barking at something so trivial as a firework show? The meaning is barely discernible, but it most likely hints at the spark of adolescence dulling into nothingness; the flags signaling the death of innocence–the death of something, or someone, you no longer are.