''Everybody's Coming Down'' is the fifth studio album by

indie-rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produce ...

band The Good Life, released on August 14, 2015 on

Saddle Creek Records Saddle Creek Records is an American record label based in Omaha, Nebraska. Started as a college class project on entrepreneurship, the label was founded by Mike Mogis and Justin Oberst in 1993 (as Lumberjack Records). Mogis soon turned over his ...

. The Good Life's first album in eight years, ''Everybody's Coming Down'' is described by Jon Hadusek of ''

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'' as being lyrically "the diary of an oft-tormented songwriter who’s finally reached a point of realization" and musically as "a loose jam with friends."

Background

The last The Good Life album was 2007's '' Help Wanted Nights'', and since that time members of the band generally moved away from their hometown of Omaha, Nebraska and worked on other projects. Founder, singer and songwriter

Tim Kasher Timothy J. Kasher (born August 19, 1974) is an American musician from Omaha, Nebraska, and is the frontman of indie rock groups Cursive and the Good Life, both of which are on the Omaha-based record label Saddle Creek Records. Music Slowdo ...

released two albums with his other band,

Cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...

, as well as two solo albums and in the process wound up living in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Bassist Stefanie Drootin-Senseney relocated to Los Angeles with her husband, fellow musician Chris Senseney, and they formed the band Big Harp and released two albums as well as starting a family. Keyboardist Ryan Fox started a label and did some solo work after moving to Portland, Oregon, and drummer Roger Lewis stayed and worked in Omaha. Previous albums by The Good Life had primarily been singer/songwriter focused on Kasher's work with lyrics and melodies, but this album was intended to be a truly collaborative work between bandmembers, with the entire band having a say in the songwriting process and sharing songwriting credit. Reflecting this, Kasher said in an interview with '' Substream''

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's Mischa Perlman that "this is the first time the band really is a band. It’s representative of who all the members are. In the past, with previous albums, I had these ideas for how an album should sound, and it was more them meeting me in the middle.”

Critical reception

''Everybody's Coming Down'' has received a "

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" score of 67 out of 100 by

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, aggregated from eight independent reviews, which gives the album "generally favorable" reviews. ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

''s Peter Sanfilippo calls the record "focused and purposeful" and Aaron Mook of absolutepunk.net said the album is "an experimental but mostly successful step further down a path of fuzzy, theatrical rock and roll." However, ''

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''s Ian Cohen said, "it just sounds secondhand, scripts written by someone whose worldview has been shaped mostly by Cursive records," and that it's "a barely fictionalized, deadened version of asher'sown life starring him." Similarly, ''

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'' magazine observed that the album "limps along on wounded extremities, with quirky cleverness displaced in favor of sloppy indie-rock tropes," while Marcy Donelson of ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

'' characterizes the album as "engaging if meandering."

Track listing

''All songs by The Good Life''

Personnel

– vocals, guitar, keyboards * Stefanie Drootin-Senseney – bass, vocals, keyboards * Ryan Fox – guitars, keyboards, vocals, electronic percussion * Roger L. Lewis – drums, acoustic/electronic percussion

References

{{Authority control The Good Life (band) albums Saddle Creek Records albums 2015 albums