Worcester, Massachusetts singer-songwriter-rocker Jake McKelvie has a new single out today, on his birthday at that. It doesn’t surprise me one bit to learn that this wordy mofo is a Gemini. [Finger guns intensify]
Pump Fake is the first track off McKelvie’s upcoming LP A New Kind of Hat which will be available in full on July 26th. According to the description of the new record on Bandcamp, “there's a lot here if you really listen — but you can just as well hum and tap along.” From my experience, that is something I would say is absolutely true of McKelvie’s whole body of work. Musically I am generally a fan of “Louder Stuff” as it were, but I’ve never gotten sick of catching him live over the years, most often as Jake McKelvie and The Countertops; sometimes solo and more recently with a fresh full band lineup. McKelvie’s lyrics and delivery make it impossible not to attend to the stories and secrets he’s telling. On one hand it’s because you’re never quite sure what he’s going to reveal next. On the other, it’s because his vocal melodies are wont to overlap the music in interesting ways that often stop short or extend past where you’d expect a verse or chorus to come to a natural conclusion which is really cognitively engaging and makes you keep thinking when normally you’d be able to stop thinking kind of like this sentence do you see what I did there?
Pump Fake is a folky indie rock jam that’s catchy as hell and will surely rocket the name Jake McKelvie to household status especially now that that suit is involved, daaaaaaaaaaamn. You can check out the video below and if you’re semi-local you’re sure to catch a familiar face or two. Shaun Connolly, another Substacker (do we say Substacker? I’m new here) over at Worcester Sucks and I Love It has finally gotten to live out his quarterback dreams.
~RMSC