Variety’s “Plover” is Texan avantpop rock composed of compelling narrative subversion, sticky melody and tone. The hook is a compacted material derived from descriptions of naturalistic imagery, the conflict of the domesticated and undomesticated in comparison to the authors interpersonal dilemmas. It’s thoughtful and pretty dang fun.
I need my streams and mountains tempered by the grim specter of death. Gluck and Johnson, Bly and Ruefle. Some human fingerprints on the felled log, beach towels on the bog, a figure ever-present on the vista to trample and insist.
Whereas at the end of “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” Wright pulls it all back home, a new frame, fitted, variety’s entry point with “Plover” is immediate. But it functions in a similar way. The relationship is described then promptly the tangent turns away, meanders off skyward, the footnote consuming the page. And then another. Relative to the original focus, the elaborated metaphor informs the initial concern, compounding all the more weight.
Two of the greatest modern scouts of imaginative rock have already signed off on the making, Groschi and Doyle. If you’re not already following them, what are you doing here?
The singles are combining into an album to be released in November: bandcamp / name your price.
Plainly & Painfully 
