Way We Won't
Strongest lead single in a long, long time.
This song follows the pattern set by Summer Here Kids, The Crystal Lake, and Now It's On. I would argue this is the best since Summer Here Kids.
The vocal delivery is just right. Maybe Jason Lytle's voice has improved with age. Somehow there was something wrong with it on Fambly Cat (cartoonish meows for example). I welcome the change.
It is a good example of what a friend of mine described as "Nu Grandaddy." Certainly we aren't comparing this song to Taster or Broken. This sounds like an improved version of later Grandaddy. but it retains some of the lineage of the original band. The outro melody echos what was done on The Rattlesnake Song and John Deere. The moaning and groaning was featured on Complex Party Come Along Theories. The cliche use of the arpeggiator, first seen around Under the Western Freeway, actually works here and is timed well.
I think Jason Lytle pulled off something pretty difficult in resurrecting a Grandaddy sound in an authentic way where it still sounds natural.


Brush With The Wild
Half baked. If only he had spent a little more time on this. The intro melody and the lyrics just need more crafting.
Starts out sounding like a Built Like Alaska song.
When I got my official copy of Last place, I was sorry to see that I was right to think he was saying "my message is lame. I'm insane." The singsongy quality of lines like "we were the best" is corny.
This is the guy who wrote the lyrics to Levitz and Progress Chrome so I know he has it in him to do better.
This some bears some structural similarities to the vintage Grandaddy track The Rock. Maybe they could have rerecorded that one instead.
When he says "a beautiful mess," is it a reminder of the A Pretty Mess By This One Band EP? I love PreMerced and Gentle Spike resort. Thanks for the reminder.


Evermore
So this is like a continuation to the end of the Fambly Cat song Disconnecty, where he says "For ever more.."
It's good. Spooky. Unexpected. Has a little bit of the flavor of Your Final Setting Sun, but it is its own thing and pretty unique in the Grandaddy catalog. "Good and Gone" = Giant Sand reference.


Oh She Deleter
Why is this here now? I always liked She Deleter. I remember when it came out, people would complain while I played in in my car when the loud 2nd half came on. I'd rather have had a new full version of She Delteter than some of the slogging songs on the 2nd half of Last Place.


The Boat is in the Barn
This brings me back to a specific melody memory. I moved from Houston, TX to Turlock, CA in 1993. Right toward the end of living in Houston, I remember eating lunch at the hotdog shop James Coney Island and loudly playing on the radio was the new comeback single by Duran Duran called Ordinary World.
When Jason Lytle sings the higher pitched "The boat is in the barn" at the end of the chorus, the melody matches Duran Duran's line in Ordinary World, "somehow I have to find." I cannot dissociate this melody and therefore cannot think of anything else and cannot forgive the rest of the song.
What's up with this song anyway? It really shows Jason Lytle's middle age. The jaunty rhythm is not something that would have existed in 1990s grandaddy. The sea shanty rap vocal cadence reminds me of when Brian Wilson Presents Smile came out in 2004 and he had added lyrics to the instrumental song Holday - sea shanty rap lyrics.
Dear Brian Wilson and Jason Lytle, you were brilliant when you were in your 20s and wrote my favorite songs. Please don't use sea shanty rap style vocals on new songs. Thanks.


Check Injin
Though it's not truly the throwback to old punk Grandaddy (Prepare to Bawl) as has been suggested on this board, it's a pretty darn good song with some energy. Those shifting times flex some of the chops seen on hits like Street Bunny and Winners. While I wish there could be more songs a little more like this, I shouldn't complain as albums like Sumday had no songs like this at all.


I Don't Wanna Live Here Anymore
It only took about 20 seconds into hearing this for the first time before it was clear that this is the best song on the album. It's simple, but it's perfect. Jason Lytle is a very talented songwriter, but he often gets caught up in the gimmicks of themes or production. This here song is very uncluttered and direct. It so easy but focused. It's a song capturing a sentiment nobody else really can. This is the right direction for Grandaddy to go 20-something years into the career. This is the guy who wrote Wives of Farmers, Running Cable at Chivas, and Rode My Bike to my Stepsister's Wedding. The one-two punch of Check Injin then I Don't Wanna Live Here Anymore is the high point of the album.
It uses the same classic chord chord progression Cass McCombs used on Bobby King of Boys Town on the album A, but it's a completely different song. I like both.


That's What You Get For Getting Out of Bed
The acoustic part at the beginning is so familiar but I can't place it. Is this a reference or a recycled part?
The rest of the song is kind of dorky, but it's grown on me. I like how the instrumental melody break sounds like Mexican restaurant music. It's almost like a parody of a Sumday song, but somehow it's better.



This is the Part
Here's where side B of the album starts to drag. We already just finished a prolonged mid-tempo song. Here is another one, but its less fun or interesting. It's a kind of sulky melodramatic plodding song that I wonder why exists and then I remember this is for Troybob and Co. I'm sure Troybob loves this song unconditionally and feels something deeply from it. I don't. It's confusing because it's a dull listless thing that makes power ballads like Winger's Headed for a Heartbreak or Poison's I Won't Forget You seem vivid and sincere. This song is taking up valuable real estate on a Grandaddy album. Seems wrong when Glider Pilot, I'm Not Alright, and The Final team still have never seen an official release.


Jed the Fourth
When I'd read that there was going to be another Jed song, I didn't get my hopes up. Beautiful Ground is a favorite. I liked the one on the Signal to Snow EP. But I was never too excited about ongoing concept story line.
However, this new one exceeded all expectations. Short and sweet. Well done. This is better than anything on a Grandaddy release since the Sophtware Slump. Maybe Jason Lytle is still an Artist.


A Lost Machine
Dammit. By this point, we're on the 5th mid-tempo song in a row. I'm getting bored.
Many professionally published reviews of Last Place herald this song as a highlight, calling it "complex" and one even called it "prog." But it's just clunky mid-tempo melodrama borrowing a lot of the lyrical themes from the overrated "rarity" Fare Thee Not Well Mutineer. In fact, it's boring as hell. Instead of holding up my lighter at the end where it grandiosely keeps repeating the same line, I just feel a little embarrassed when the electric guitar solo flourishes come in. It's like a Meatloaf song. Maybe it appeals to fans of the theater or something or the European fans who ate up the themes on Sophtware Slump.


Songbird Son
When I first heard this months ago performed on an acoustic guitar on the Rose City Round radio show, I didn't like it much. I assumed that it would receive a predictable production treatment for the album version. He says "it's a newer song that's going to get like the full production and probably a completely different tempo and totally realized, re-realized, but uh this is the, this is the uh, meat and potatoes of it."
I'm so glad he didn't do that at all. For the album release, he bravely played it straight and kept it stripped down. It's even slower than on the radio show.
It's heartbreaking.
It's the first time on the album I find myself thinking about Jason Lytle's marriage problems in a real way.
It's crushing, but it saves the album at the end.