It’s rare that a jam band can translate what makes them special throughout the course of an entire studio album. There’s something that is indelible about witnessing a live performance from a band like Goose or Grateful Dead that transcends the experience of listening of music through headphones– the buzz of spontaneity that permeates the air, the electricity in the crowd, and the feeling of collectiveness is a timeless one, something that live music can only provide.
And yet in 2022’s Dripfield Goose has managed to do the somewhat inconceivable, translating that raw jam band energy usually captured live and recreate that magic in the studio. And to be clear, this isn’t just a good jam band studio album– this is a great album period, a journey that takes you through peaks and valleys in dramatic fashion.
It starts with keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Peter Anspach, whose layered textures on the keys through piano and synths consistently paint a gorgeous sonic scene on the canvas the rest of the band provides. It’s hard to find a song on Dripfield where Anspach’s contributions don’t steal the show and make everything sound massive in a widescreen cinematic type of way. This is punctuated by lead vocalist Rick Mitarotonda who, on top of sounding pretty much exactly like Mutemath lead singer Paul Meany (it’s seriously uncanny), delivers clean vocal line after clean vocal line that effectively functions as a sixth instrument and is the shepherd through the noise. Rounding out the group is bassist Trevor Weeks, drummer Ben Atkind, and percussionist Jeff Arevalo, who despite their brief mention here all serve as the bedrock that makes the entire thing hum.
It was hard to select favorite moments from this album for a variety of reasons– first, the whole experience blends together much like Roxy Music’s 1982 album Avalon or The War on Drugs 2017 cut A Deeper Understanding. The transitions are seamless and organic, a cohesive experience that feels effortless despite all the virtuosic musicianship. The second is that there is a sheer deluge of incredible moments– from the guitar solo on “Hungersite” (one of the best you’ll ever hear, seriously) to the frantic helter-skelter during the outro of “The Whales” to the goosebump-raising finale that closes out “Borne” or the synth line in “Honeybee” that evokes feelings of Steve Miller Band’s “Wild Mountain Honey” (considering the title similarities my guess is that it is intentional), it’s pleasantly surprising how well a band who eschews writing your stereotypical pop music hooks finds its way to deliver so many earworms so often.
Dripfield is an album for the ages, and a must-listen for any avid music lover.
Standout Songs: “Borne”, “Hungersite”, “The Whales”, “Honeybee”
