12 RODS w/ AAN – 21+ – Early Show

Despite these songs being written twenty-two years ago, their sound, themes, mood are evergreen. Lead single, pop nugget “My Year (This Is Going To Be),” is both the appropriate ticket to a new era and a souvenir of the past, gussied up in self-awareness, humor, and perhaps the faintest bit of hope. “Cause with all my calculations/Everything looks so, so clear/This is going to be my year.” Which of us didn’t watch the dawn of 2020 thinking the same, only to have confused stellar light with nuclear flash? Everything magnetic in vintage Rods — pitch-perfect, Beach Boys-esque harmonies, clean, rhythmic guitar, grooving bass, steady drums — and that clear, plaintive voice invoking our deepest, silliest wish: that everything’s going to be okay.

And that’s only one of the album’s seven bangers. From album opener “All I Can Think About,” with its subdued inner monologue musings that meander from world-weary to awestruck, to the grunge-indebted “Comfortable Situation,” to the smooth, loungey “The Beating,” it’s clear that Olcott isn’t just picking up where he left off, but having fun while doing it.