We The Common is a good time. It’s a completely painless, mood-lifting listen.
By seeking out a shared experience that everybody they’re reaching out to can hold on to, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down have created an album with We the Common that’s anything but common.
Its 12 songs are smart, sometimes piercingly self-aware meditations on the creative life, teasing out the tension between life and art, the individual and the community-- and perhaps most of all-- security and restlessness.
If you're looking to put a spring in your step, there's plenty here to help you out.
Personal lyrics, swinging rhythms, easy and eminently catchy melodies, modest but textured arrangements, and an all-around good-times, life's-all-right vibe.
This much-needed spark comes in channeling an array of genres to create a raucous, rolling good time.
Save for a few tweaks, she doesn’t go to great lengths to expand upon the musical formula that’s served her to date.
It’s all lovely stuff, but the darkness within my soul says it’s maybe too lovely.