It’s a 12-hour drive from Texas to Alabama, but when you take the time to sit with (in?) football, etc.’s new album Corner, it shares so much of the hazy, summer sentiment of Katie Crutchfield’s Ivy Tripp. That kind of unhurried, clear vision of a record is surprising, considering it was actually produced in five days with minimal overdubs. But yet, holed up in J Robbins’ Magpie Cage in Baltimore, Texan trio football, etc. have channeled some of that Waxahatchee Lakeside shimmer into this album.
Indeed, opener “Save” is all pinched harmonics and seascapes over the sad realization of a relationship gone overboard. Heartfelt “Overtime” is wistful and contemplative, with its stuttering strings and swirling chorus: “And you may try and wonder why you’re still the bad guy.” That leads seamlessly into the similarly hopeful “Try Out” with its rollicking floor toms, as vocalist Lindsay Minton looks for the reassurance we’re all searching for.
It wouldn’t be unfair to say that football, etc. plays the kind of heartfelt jams you might hear on an indie film – the Stratford sisters would be all over this. But it would be unfair to dismiss the Texan troupe as sub-par prom odes. There’s tenderness in “Space” as Minton takes a moment’s reflection towards her own demons, with artful harmonies filling the emptiness. The inward-facing analysis continues in the deliberately discordant “Eleven,” where “the world is upside down” and she can’t “tell the sky from the ground” longing for someplace else.
Corner is just as the name would suggest, intimate and shielded – much like the lyrics in the record – but the clean guitar lines and charming vocals act like a floodlight guiding the way forward.
It’s not a boundary-breaking release, but no one should put football, etc. in the Corner. They deserve brighter lights.
Catch football, etc. on their European tour with DAGS! (Milan, IT) from July 1st. Corner is released on May 26 via Community Records.
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