Styrofoam Winos
Any River
DEAR LIFE
Have you ever tried erasure poetry? It’s a strange feeling, taking someone else’s writing and blacking out chunks of text to home in on a particular yet often elusive sentiment. The more time I’ve spent doing it, the more I’ve realized it activates an intuitive part of the brain that’s already constantly reinterpreting the world. But what’s weirder than its decontextualizing nature is just how communal of an activity it can be; it’s the only kind of poetry I can think of that always feels better in a group setting. It’s no surprise that Styrofoam Winos’ earliest attempts at songwriting were born out of jam sessions and blackout poetry; even if they don’t still generate lines by flipping through old books, sharing a Google Doc full of lyrics would still put them in that kind of poetic mindset.
Not that the gorgeous, free-flowing music pervading the Nashville band’s new album Any River sounds like it was made by poring over a screen—or a book, for that matter. Jam sessions are still where their songs take shape, as Joe Kenkel, Trevor Nikrant, and Lou Turner not only flesh them out, but constantly switch instruments at their home studio. This way they’re more attuned to their playing, songwriting, and voice than the sound of any one member’s instrument, like picking out a different marker to color through the words between the lines—the dewy intimacy of “I Felt You” lined with talk box and melodica, or the open-heartedness of “New Friend” with flute and trumpet. When a bass clarinet solo jumps out of the blue on “Somebody Wants to Send You a Message” like a delightfully violent scribble, you can almost assume it’s coming from some kind of outsider.
That would be producer Jim Marlowe, who’s also been their bandmate in Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band. They may sound incredibly tight-knit, but the Winos certainly don’t exist in a vacuum; they’ve not only performed with but made fans of some of the biggest names in indie rock. Lining the album’s press materials is glowing praise from the likes of Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who’s spent some “quality time” with the group, and MJ Lenderman, who enlisted them for a cover of “Long Black Veil” for his 2023 live album Live and Loose!. The former songwriter highlights the album’s “solid vibes,” which register as soon as you tune into the feel-good optimism of the opening tracks, while the latter remarks that “they know how to boogie,” which is just as immediately evident.
You can look at a blackout poem from afar and appreciate its form and color, just like a river whose inner workings are alien to you, or a Styrofoam Winos record you just want to enjoy in the car. (If it were such a poem, the album certainly would be marked by a bright color, despite a few darker, haunting songs on the back half.) But I encourage you to zoom into the nuances of Any River, which are musical, yes—the range of country-leaning styles, from the swampy, rollicking “Swimminin” to “Just for You,” which might as well have been written for Kevin Morby’s latest effort, to say nothing of the sheer array of instrumentation—but also affective, ripe with emotional dynamics.
By the devotional warmth of the first two songs, for instance, you may not be surprised to learn that Turner and Nikrant are married. Kenkel’s songs “Somebody Wants to Send You a Message” and “Next Thing,” meanwhile, are tinged with just the right amount of social media disaffection. “Packed up for the real world / You know the one I mean, the real world / The really, really real world / Hop in if your story’s through,” he sings on the latter, right before Turner opens “Off My Mind” with, “Waking up is clocking out of dream time,” a line that does have the cadence of a blackout poem. For how down-to-earth it sounds, Any River paints Styrofoam Winos as sailors in their own small, imaginary universe, where you’re always invited to recast your environment—and possibly see it in a whole new light.
