SPENCER RADCLIFFE & EVERYONE ELSE
ENJOY THE GREAT OUTDOORS (RUN FOR COVER)
Enjoy The Great Outdoors is the second album by Spencer Radcliffe for Run For Cover Records. While the Chicago-by-way-of-Ohio based artist has almost exclusively worked alone on projects like Blithe Field and his 2015 solo debut Looking In, on this album he has recruited some friends to expand the world he crafts with his music.
With the backing of "Everyone Else," Radcliffe's songwriting is at it's finest on Enjoy The Great Outdoors.
These ten tracks blend slowed down in-die rock with folk and a slight alt-country twang that recalls the slow-brewed sound of The Silver Jews, The Microphones and early Wilco.
Enjoy The Great Outdoors finds Radcliffe and Company along the always-open road between home and true destiny, sparkling just off in the distance.
Perhaps it is a laid-back, watery, mountainous place where beer flows like wine and a lousy weekend can be charged with a crime.
Fanciful yet straight-faced stories address the subjective nature of seemingly opposed destinations--and the potential truth that neither will ultimately meet expectations.
Radcliffe urges the listener to "see the things there's still left to see," but not without the warning that "happiness is not free".
There is an overall sense of urgency in the narrative, as if the future is slowly sinking over an endless horizon like the desert sun.