Son Of Dribble

***"You know it and I know it: there’s more trouble coming every day. So what are you hoping for in a record? Escape? Encouragement? Endurance? How about a grinning shrug, a wordlessly shared cigarette, a song that says, 'Wow you’ve had a rough year, huh?' This is Poking a Hole in a Bag of Tears by Columbus, Ohio’s Son of Dribble. It’s worn in and memorable, insistent but at a respectful distance. There is so much trouble in these songs: unexplained scars, mistakes repeated, sickness. And sure, Son of Dribble aren’t quite able to repel the despair, but they are very good company in the rain. It has to do with the dogged stomp of the drumming, the lingering melody of the guitars, the buzz and the momentum. And it has to do with that faded croon, a kind of singing that makes the slightest kindness feel life-altering, a kind of singing that makes the worst story you ever heard just kind of drift past you. Poking a Hole really thrives in this push/pull. There’s plenty of space for wallowing and jostling both on this record, but it doesn’t actually do either. The effect is maybe most like a good old dog? That companionable trotting right at your hip, that sense of not quite understanding the details but very clear on the mood. And then every once in a while it can’t resist, it takes off running, eating up ground with such speed you almost feel like you don’t know it at all. But it always comes back, and never even seems breathless."—Ethan Swan