Josh Rouse – Going Places (2022) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Josh Rouse – Going Places (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 31:47 minutes | 584 MB | Genre: Indie Folk, Singer-Songwriter
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Yep Roc Records

Josh Rouse wrote the songs for Going Places, while hunkered down in Spain with his family in 2020 and 2021. The inspiration was to have a set of new songs to play in a small club run by a couple of his Spanish bandmates. Josh recorded and produced the songs in his home studio. The result is a collection of songs that feel a bit looser, lean into the guitar a bit more and will sound great in the live setting. It’s also another sonic shift for Josh, who is not afraid of changing things up. What remains consistent is Josh’s ability to write hooks and find grooves that create a sound that is at once familiar, but wholly new. Fans will likely gravitate toward, “Hollow Moon,” which in a just world, would be a massive hit single. It is classic Josh Rouse. But songs like, “Apple of My Eye,” and “She’s In L.A.” definitely show the Spanish influence, which Rouse calls, “A Pan-American sound.”Following detours into lush synth pop and jazzy Yuletide fare, singer/songwriter Josh Rouse circles back to his wheelhouse on Going Places, a breezy homemade record perfect for bopping around the barroom dancefloor, which as it happens was exactly his intention. A Nebraskan living the expat life in Spain, Rouse has spent a quarter-century exploring different avenues of cleverly built folk-pop, building up a prolific catalog and a reputation for consistent quality. Recorded at home during the global pandemic, Going Places is refreshingly warm and sweet, bearing little of contemporary society’s ills and harking back to a more nostalgic time of early rock innocence. In that way it recalls Marshall Crenshaw’s early albums where singer/songwriter craft meets late-’50s Brill Building rock and pop. With the music industry at a standstill, Rouse set his sights on writing a set of songs that yearn for a lively Saturday night at the local pub. He even had a place in mind. His Spanish bandmates had recently bought a local American-themed bar where zippy toe-tappers like “Apple of My Eye,” “City Dog,” and “The Lonely Postman” would serve as a perfect soundtrack. He deftly avoids the more obvious retro-throwback production while serving up a platter of stripped-down organic pop, comfortably played by a small guitar combo. Going Places isn’t a particularly challenging record, but that’s not the point. Rouse imbues these little vignettes and easy-going love songs with his trademark charm and wit, creating a self-contained mood that has plenty of appeal.
– Timothy Monger

Tracklist:

1-01. Josh Rouse – Apple Of My Eye (03:36)
1-02. Josh Rouse – City Dog (03:16)
1-03. Josh Rouse – Henry Miller’s Flat (03:08)
1-04. Josh Rouse – Hollow Moon (03:55)
1-05. Josh Rouse – Waiting On The Blue (03:36)
1-06. Josh Rouse – She’s In L.A. (03:06)
1-07. Josh Rouse – There’s Somebody Whose Job It Is (03:45)
1-08. Josh Rouse – The Lonely Postman (02:14)
1-09. Josh Rouse – Indian Summer (02:32)
1-10. Josh Rouse – Stick Around (02:34)

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