The Bollard Bulletin for February 10, 2025
Local Music Monday: Another "vital" album by amiright?
Local Music Monday
The tiny bio on amiright?’s Bandcamp page sums them up nicely: “a lil heavy sometimes, a lil weird sometimes, always goofin’.” It’s that last bit that makes this indie-rock trio the most vital band in Maine, according to almost every Merriam-Webster definition of the word.
“1 a: of the utmost importance”
If a couple cousins making goofy noise-pop songs like “Save My Children, Bono of U2” in a bedroom in Central Maine can’t enlist their pal Simi who plays bass, self-record a series of increasingly awesome albums and play a show every now and again for the rest of their friends, then all is lost, our culture is finally dead, and I guess we should all go eat worms. But amiright? is living, rocking proof these minor miracles still occur, and it’s vitally important that groups like this can still create and share their music with virtually no help from anyone with any real power, influence or money.
“1 b: fundamentally concerned with or affecting life or living beings: such as
“(1) : tending to renew or refresh the living
“(2) : destructive to life”
The songs on amiright?’s new album, Husk of a Body, which they’ll release this Saturday with a show at SPACE, deal bluntly with matters of life and death, reinvigoration and deterioration, the desperate imperative to survive. “I’ve been trying to run and I’ve been trying to care,” Noah Grenier-Farwell yelps on the chorus of the catchy first single, “Jaundice.” On the half-hardcore story song “Four Legs Six Ribbits,” Noah advises, “Hug your friends and family ’cause the frogs all want us dead.” And on “Sequel to Head Will Explode,” cousin Quinn Farwell — who swaps vocals, drums and guitars with Noah on their recordings — faces the slaving cosmic meat wheel* of reincarnation: “There’s a universe deep inside my chest / It will swallow me / I will wake up the same.”
“3: full of life and vigor”
Husk of a Body was primarily recorded at Prism Analog, a professional studio (albeit with an indie bent) in Portland, but the group’s raw spontaneity, raggedy sound, humor and anger shine through. Polish would poison this material. You get the feeling the band is as surprised and thrilled as you are by how killer they sound on tracks like the bashing-and-crashing instrumental “They Are Buying a Barry Berkman** Out Back” and the second half of “Delivery Driver,” wherein Quinn rides off into the sunset on a cowpoke-learns-math-rock riff after declaring “I’m not gonna do it anymore.”
“Diaper Full of Shit” and “Piledriver” stand alongside “Jaundice” and earlier tracks like “Gone,” “Assabet” and “Hahaha” as strong evidence for my argument to anyone who’ll listen that amiright? is our Nirvana. Yes, they’re that fuckin’ great. And no, they don’t act like it, ending this record with the jokey waltz “Slacks,” which is about fashionable pants and the folly of trying to be fashionable.
“6: of, relating to, or constituting the staining of living tissues”
Yeah, not so much this one, insofar as it doesn’t apply to tattoos and I don’t know if they even have any. Too fashionable.
Amiright? plays SPACE (538 Congress St., Portland) on Sat., Feb. 15, with Space Camp, Pond 1000 and otis. opening at 8 p.m. Tix: $12-$15 (all ages). 828-5600. space538.org. Husk of a Body comes out Feb. 14 on Sad Cactus Records.
*Riff on a term in Jack Kerouac’s “211th Chorus”
**Title character in HBO’s hilarious Barry.
Music
Not much live stuff on tap tonight save the biweekly “Monday of the Minds” hip-hop showcase and open mic at Flask Lounge (117 Spring St., Portland) at 8 p.m. It’s free (21+). Check out this week’s Sounds of the City playlist of tracks by acts that’ll be on stage in Portland between now and next Monday, compiled by Peter Jacobs (with listings from Portland Noise).