Artist: Nic Dalton and his Gloomchasers

Album: Play All Night, Half A Cow Records

Former bassist for The Lemonheads and Half A Cow Records owner, Nic Dalton returns with his gang of folk-rocking Gloomchasers on their new album Play All Night. This album reflects Dalton’s own progression from a hyperactive, prolific rockstar to a faded musician with a wife and child. The swampy, homespun bluegrass with a melodic backbone and breezy, ambling lyrics—minus that annoying southern twang—is the follow-up to 2005’s Home of Big Regret about Dalton’s move to the country with now ex-girlfriend Lucy Lehmann, who plays the gutstring guitar and sings backing vocals on the album.

Dalton’s maturation doesn’t squash all of the fun out of the new album, the plucky banjo and sporadic bursts of trumpet and trombone uplift the melancholy themes while lyrics like “I smoked pot with Harry Nilsson six months before he died” on “Harry’s Demos” or “I feel so cheap just to be a f-cking circus freak” on “The Circus Clown” also provide the album with a quirky boost of kitsch.

Key Tracks: “Okay Sydney, You Beat Me”, “Take Me As I Am”, “The Last Fan”