Music Reviews
Unicycle Loves You

Unicycle Loves You

Unicycle Loves You

Highwheel

When it comes to a great summer album with a steaming melting pot of genre twists and stylistic turns, Unicycle Loves You certainly puckers up and lays a nice fat one right on the lips of your ears. This self-titled debut album of intricate and catchy new-wave pop rock gets the rhythmic blood pumping while tossing in clever, quirky lyrics alongside sharp left turns filled with clashing cymbals, gleaming guitars, and understated thumping bass lines.

All the indie-rock and new-wave genre-blending chorus-to-verse switcheroo makes each song feel like three tracks in one. And the effect feels just fine. I guess that’s because the Chicago-based Unicycle really does want to woo you. Almost all of the songs are what music lovers call catchy and lovable and blaze down the highway on more than one wheel contrary to what the moniker suggests.

If you’re looking for a summer album while the weather is still hot, or you want to stock up for next year, this is one to embrace when the warm summer wind is blowing through the car windows. But the album should also be good for melting and chasing away the nasty winter doldrums.

Lead singer Jim Carroll (no relation, if you’re wondering) leads his band with a sprint of vocal dips and rises and sideways sways, slyly slipping in clever stories of sadness, heartache, and angst between all the synthy sunshine and rhythmic rollicking.

Unicycle Loves You: http://www.unicyclelovesyou.com


Recently on Ink 19...

Swans

Swans

Event Reviews

40 years on, Michael Gira and Swans continue to bring a ritualistic experience that needs to be heard in order to be believed. Featured photo by Reese Cann.

Eclipse 2024

Eclipse 2024

Features

The biggest astronomical event of the decade coincides with a long overdue trip to Austin, Texas.

Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Music Reviews

At the Showcase: Live in Chicago 1976/1977 (Jazz Detective). Review by Bob Pomeroy.