The Good Life Albums (4)
'Help Wanted Nights'
Release Date 9/11/2007
Tracks 11
Label Saddle Creek
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Four albums in, Tim Kasher is still not set on the direction he wants his side project, the Good Life, to take. He's already toyed with indie electronica bleeps and emo howls, and now, on Help Wanted Nights, he heads toward more singer/songwriter territory, not ditching the full band but using it sparingly, his acoustic guitar the most prominent instrument besides his voice. There are definitely moments of Saddle Creek alt-country, the label that houses both the Good Life and Cursive, heard in the electric guitar, the organ, but the record is what Kasher knows best, indie rock, hinting at Pavement and Sebadoh and even Bruce Springsteen. The songs on Help Wanted Nights are all solid, simple, yet melodic, about running away from home and trying to find home and breaking up, but nothing really stands out. "Heartbroke," sly and quirky, is certainly fun, but it hardly compares to any of the tracks on Album of the Year, let alone Kasher's work with Cursive, and while "Rest Your Head" is nice, Neil Young-y and sweet, it doesn't do much but fade out slowly, nearly ten minutes' worth, into the background. On their last album, the Good Life seemed focused and smart, composing a record that worked both as an entity and as 12 separate pieces, but Help Wanted Nights lacks both the overall vision (despite the fact it was originally meant to be the soundtrack to a screenplay) and individual strength and clarity, the lyrics hinting at cleverness and profundity without ever reaching them ("See, Keely, I love your suffering/Like gravity loves a stumbling drunk," he sings in "Keely Aimee," then going immediately back into trite expressions of obsession and longing and love). Certainly not an embarrassing or even poor effort, but Kasher is not living up to his potential here, needing some more help of his own, perhaps, to get everything back to where it could, and should, be. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide
'Album of the Year'
Release Date 8/10/2004
Tracks 25
Label Saddle Creek
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The Good Life follow up the excellent Lovers Need Lawyers EP with their best record yet and maybe the best indie rock record of 2004. Album of the Year is a concept record of sorts, one song for each month, each song a heart-rending essay of love found, lost, broken, or ripped apart, ranging from the puppy love "Album of the Year" to the depressed, resigned-to-loss "A New Friend" and "Two Years This Month." Tim Kasher has found his voice, and almost all traces of previous Robert Smith-isms are gone; instead, he whispers, hollers, cajoles, and confesses in a voice stripped of artifice and plugged right into the listener's soul. The record is perfectly constructed. Based around acoustic guitars, the songs are colored in with keyboards, various percussion instruments, and glockenspiel, and made dramatic and often breathtaking. Songs like "You're Not You" and "Album of the Year" are pocket epics, created out of atmosphere and dynamic shifts in mood. Most of the songs are relatively downbeat, but a few, like "Lovers Need Lawyers," show that the band can write snappy pop songs as well. Kasher's lyrics are incisive, personal, and about as honest-sounding as rock music can get. He doesn't flinch from any topic -- not sex, lack of sex, divorce, self-mutilation, or his own shortcomings -- and manages to never pen anything that leaves the listener queasy. He gives the most self-lacerating song, "Inmates," to guest vocalist Jiha Lee to sing "lover done wrong" style before they sing the second half together like an indie George and Tammy. The attention to detail in the production, the punchy melodies, and the sympathetic performances by the group -- along with Kasher's writing that is nothing less than gripping and often head-shakingly brilliant -- make this record an indispensable artifact for anyone who likes indie rock with a real emotional punch. The record comes with a second "bonus" disc that presents the songs in their acoustic demo form. It is a nice addition, but you will find yourself listening to the first disc more often simply because of the wonderful production values. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
As disparate as debut Novena on a Nocturn was, Black Out is even more courageous. The album employs moodier instrumentation, creating a melancholic disposition that's as discomfiting as it is winsome. Though the record can get quite intense -- and with the stark, dark lyrics of Tim Kasher, often delivered in an eerie baritone, things get quite profound and stay that way even after it's over -- it is definitely the mellowest drama that Kasher has been involved with to date. The '80s feel of the debut resurfaces, especially on the Americana-esque "Off the Beaten Path" and the discordantly memorable "Empty Bed," which suggests the Cure's Robert Smith singing along to a Fixx melody that U2 are playing. While this prominent vibe does rekindle a somewhat nostalgic musing, make no mistake: Black Out is a thoroughly modern invocation possessing a subdued, almost unspoken power that is even more so by being so consciously clear of clutter. ~ Brian O'Neill, All Music Guide
'Novena on a Nocturn'
Release Date 10/31/2000
Tracks 9
Label Better Looking
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Essentially a solo project for Cursive's Tim Kasher, albeit with plenty of instrumental help from a variety of friends, the debut album from the Good Life is the culmination of 12 years of songwriting outside his full-time gig. Those 12 years must have been filled with some great bygone LPs and a fair helping of woe, because instead of the '90s indie pop of Cursive, Kasher explores stark and angular ground on Novena on a Nocturn that recalls no one more so than the Brit-pop icons of the 1980s. The dour and miserable sentiment of the Smiths and the Cure ("The Competition" would have fit perfectly on Disintegration) bleeds into the detached and alien sound of synth-pop combos like Human League and Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, with the lush, melodramatic theatricality of new romantics Soft Cell and Ultravox draping over each song like a wet blanket. These are pure coffeehouse and cabaret tunes with a sustained atmosphere of haunting, world-weary ache. In addition to their '80s forebears, the songs explore the timeless songcraft and painfully honest life-lessons of artists such as Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill, and Scott Walker. The music is minimalistic but also cleverly layered with intriguing sounds, particularly eerie keyboards and bits of electronics. It is sweeping, intense music with volumes of emotional resonance and a tragic undercurrent. Kasher's songs are inconsolable prayers of lament and resignation, intimate and almost painfully introspective without exactly being overtly insular. And yet there is an overwhelming sense that you are eavesdropping on a two-way conversation with Job-like epic proportions. As the title suggests, the album has nearly religious connotations, and its nine 'novenas' delve into all the shadows and blue hues of nighttime. Dark and icy imagery spots nearly every tune, and even when a subject like the sun is referenced, as on the final "Golden Exit," there is something cold and insidious and wintry about its appearance, as if nothing can thaw Kasher's anguish, nothing can break through the bleakness of his worldview. Novena on a Nocturn, after all, is not about the light; despite the cleverly ironic band name, its purpose is to exorcise all those personal demons that seem to travel in the darkness -- listeners' own individual darknesses. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide
