Music is the sign of life when other aspects of civilisation fail.
With the USA still as much a sharply-divided country as it has been since the Obama years, you might expect a musical duo using the name My Politic to have strong opinions about the state of affairs. Well, they do, but not nearly as political as you might think on their latest album, “Signs of Life”. Despite the stern visages of Kaston Guffey and Nick Pankey staring out at you from the sepia-toned cover of the CD and LP, this record and the majority of its 13 songs are more concerned with relating to everyday life than ideology.
“Maybe I’m doing alright/ It’s so hard to tell what’s true sometimes/ Maybe I’m doing alright/ Out here searching for signs of life”, the indie-folk duo sings in the title track’s refrain as a reminder to stay curious, engaged and connected with the world, unlike a neighbor, who spends the night digging a hole 15-feet deep in his backyard while unable to sleep: “I think about the things that he finds / Bottles & trinkets, little pieces that shine / Some days I wish his life was mine.”
For those looking for a redux of My Politic’s 2020 seven-song protest EP, “Short-Sighted People in Power”, they won’t find much here with the exception of ‘Will We Ever Make It Out of Heaven Alive,’ where the characters contemplate the America that’s been marketed to them and the ways the fantasy of America is used as a shield to uphold the grimmer aspects of life. The song challenges the listener to consider if there’s any chance of correcting the discrepancies.
It’s a collection of songs hued by nostalgia but executed with modern brilliance. The punchy and catchy country blues-tinged ‘Still Growing Today’ explores Guffey’s childhood in the Ozarks and the curiosity that ultimately led to a life far from home. ‘Two in the Morning’ is a parable about repressed anger and the dangers of revenge against a world that puts doubts and anxiety in your path. The finger-picked melody swirls in your head while it circles the drain as the duo wails, The world’s got me pacing and anxious again / doubts built a permanent place in my head / I don’t feel time the way I used to feel it / it used to be on my side now it just wants me dead.
Time is a grand theme on this album, and Guffey and Pankey have written some timeless songs to the ticking of our internal clocks. “I heard somewhere that “time” is the most used word in the English language,” Guffey said, “but it’s still very much a mystery to us. I thought that was a really interesting idea and as I was writing this album, I kept thinking about time. I wanted to explore it from many different perspectives.”
In ‘Who Could Ask for More’, we hear a love song wrapped around a dialogue between two characters, about their values and what they want out of life. It’s punctuated with the line, I sit and I think / All about the funny way time passes / The past played back to me in flashes / Lessons learned in chain reactions / Just high enough to find the patterns / And happy to explore.
‘From The Early Days’ will be wearingly familiar to anyone who’s ever been obsessed with climate change. ‘The Lonely 21st Century’ confronts consumerism with style and sharp teeth (turning us into commercials in disguise), and that is what makes My Politic such a kinetic band among a bastion of musicians making out-there, pristine songs that challenge a listener’s understanding with laser-sharp focus and a poetic bent.
The gentle ‘Living Lean’ highlights the beauty of feeling like you belong where you live. Guffey and his wife recently moved from Nashville to Pittsburgh where he barely knew anyone and had to learn a brand new place with brand new people. “It turned out to be the best gamble we could’ve made. The neighborhood, the city and its people really shaped this album.”
It is Pankey’s lyricism on the guitar that aids in making this release a streamlined success. This is a heartbroken album full of no breakup songs, so Guffey drinks from the wellspring of hurt by focusing on connection, be it rekindling conversations with people from the house concert circuit that they have been touring for over a decade on ‘A Funny Place to Find Oneself,’ or losing touch with friends on the folky ‘I Took All The Pictures Down,’ Dust like shadows hanging around / What used to be here can’t be found. “Signs of Life” is an eye-opening record, if only because it’s so deeply human and vulnerable. My Politic is still calling things like they see them.
