Around Sound

Mike Polizzes 2020 solo debut Long Lost Solace Find was a triumph of subtlety. The Philadelphia musicians years of high-volume glory in his bands Purling Hiss and the psychedelic Birds of Maya didnt point to an understated masterpiece of low-key acoustic introspection, but thats what Polizze delivered as a solo artist. In the years that followed, he again took up the mantle of feedback and power with both of his bands, but dialed it back down again for Around Sound, his second album released under his own name and another exploration of the relaxed, acoustic-centered side of his songwriting. This set of songs has a slightly different overall tonality than Polizzes last solo album. He flits between 60s U.K. folk-informed sounds on the circular meditation "It Goes Without Saying" and something closer to an unplugged reading of his usual rock songwriting on tracks like "Everybody I Know" and "Too Much Thinking." On songs like these, theres an undercurrent of Paisley Underground-styled dreaminess. Remarkably, Polizze used no electric guitars anywhere on Around Sound, but he still manages a few moments of feedback texture and buffers the acoustic instruments with Mellotron drones, vibraphone, and piano. Theres a greater emphasis on fingerstyle guitar here as well, and Polizze implements fingerpicking in a few different ways. The lazily strolling title track is based around simple fingerpicking runs, with an instrumentation that follows a blueprint akin to Zuma-era Neil Young and Crazy Horse. "Fast Blues" is more stripped-down, cycling between a few different Fahey-esque guitar figures as Polizzes vocals haunt the song like a low-energy ghost. The tune builds into a barnburning finale, but maintains its fingerstyle sound even as blasting, overdriven drums come in. Around Sound has a slightly sharper edge than Long Lost Solace Find, and this difference becomes clearer as it goes along. Polizzes songs sound partially composed, partially like hes drifting through them and seeing what happens. Closing track "Four Celestions" gently winds the album down in a way that feels especially unmoored by strict songwriting. A fingerpicked guitar phrase wanders as multiple tracks of vocals, wordless expressions, and spoken segments overlap. Polizzes range deepens even further on Around Sound. He shows hes adept not just in the loud and the soft, but that he has layers of subdivisions in his musical personality, places that can be stormy, meditative, or quietly eruptive without ever plugging in an electric guitar. ~ Fred Thomas