[music] PIEBALD - We Are The Only Friends We Have (Big Wheel)

[dot_fennel]

The new Piebald (which I fell for medium-hard before it joined all my other discs in a U-Haul last month) came with buzz about how the band had finally grown up. How was I to know any differently? And yet this previous album sounds both smarter and harder than its successor to me.

"King Of The Road" has a great lyrical switchback where "Thought I saw you on the road last night / I need to get my eyes checked / Can't believe I love something as yellow as you" sounds like a kiss-off when you think it's a former lover, then affectionate when the identity of the song's true subject -- a car -- dawns on you. And "The Monkey Versus The Robot" rocks a 7-beat measure like nobody since Blondie. Okay, better than Blondie.