A former child prodigy plays midlife indie rock without an embarrassing leather jacket.
Konstantin Gropper has made “adult” music from the start. Now the former indie prodigy describes his new Get Well Soon album as “music by middle-aged musicians for middle-aged people” and rocks with a band more freely than ever before. “OK” goes forward broadly and yet beautifully catchy. “Staying Home” is loud and downright excited. “When They Cheer You’re Wrong” sounds like Interpol on speed. Is this the midlife crisis? It’s nostalgia, no doubt. And a new directness. But without buying an embarrassing leather jacket.
Gropper remains the man in the jacket on his “rock album” (own quote) – with melancholy in his buttonhole, an anthemic chorus in his breast pocket and a playful tie in the form of jokey song titles. The atmospheric “There’s Waldo” exudes space and wave, only developing a subtle hidden-object quality towards the end.
“In 1999 I bought this guitar,” recalls Gropper “The Pope Washed My Feet in Prison” and you think you’re listening to a rockier version of an old pulp number. Sometimes MINUS THE MAGIC lacks flourishes, there is more stuffiness than magic between all the guitars. But many of the melodies fit, even in my mid-forties.
