REVIEW: Good Old War – “Come Back As Rain”


[Mar. 6th, 2012 – Sargent House // Find it at: Insound]

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“There’s nothing like sleeping alone so much,” Keith Goodwin admits near the halfway point of his group’s new collection of recordings entitled Come Back As Rain. Much like the track “Can’t Go Home”, Goodwin and his friends, Tim Arnold and Dan Schwartz, bring life to the name Good Old War by revealing personal mistakes and discoveries which construct feelings that are highly unusual, but relieving. It’s a specialty Goodwin and co. introduce to listeners with every record, even dating back to the long-lost but not forgotten project Days Away, which then, colleagues like Anthony Green noted the emotional levels in their songwriting is what made their songs so inviting. On Come Back As Rain, Good Old War still blend together their timid folk melodies with upbeat rhythms and percussion, it’s just it’s much more attractive than their last attempt as there’s more nips of natural beauty in their writing.

Tender group vocals still dominate by tugging at your memories with “Loud Love” and “Better Weather”, which are countered by love and skepticism, whereas tracks such as “Calling Me Names” drape flaws and relationship bitterness in a lovable, joyous form of shade. Recapturing those feelings and reintroducing them to the listener is what made the group’s debut Only Way To Be Alone and cherished songs like “Coney Island” and “I’m Not For You”, and while it doesn’t surface in the record’s more developed tracks that move at a faster pace (“Present For The End Of The World”), there are still traces. Good Old War have always had the innate ability to shake hands with your heart, it’s just now, especially within the gorgeous compositions “Amazing Eyes” and “Not Quite Happiness”, their acoustic bliss now reaches for an embrace. For anyone listening, letting go would seem like the end of the world.

Download: “Amazing Eyes”, “Not Quite Happiness”, “After The Party”

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