Alejandro Rose-Garcia, a.k.a. Shakey Graves, launched his career in 2011 with the DIY exemplar, Roll the Bones. His next album, And the War Came, crept toward higher production values, still toeing a lo-fi line. With Can’t Wake Up, Graves constructed a well-produced, fully instrumented, and rock-leaning sequence, and showcased his gift for sonic texturing. With 2023’s Movie of the Week, he further experimented with studio options and, in terms of songcraft, forged his most eclectic templates.
Those who felt that Movie of the Week drifted too far from Rose-Garcia’s garage-y origins will be gratified by the singer-songwriter’s return to his roots. On “Don’t Change a Thing,” for example, the largely untreated vocal, with its “perfect imperfections,” makes for an intimate listening experience. Drums are brushy, the guitar alternately mellifluous and twangy. The vibe is languorous, even as lyrics point to grief or impending doom (“Better days have left me behind”, “Spending all our money trying to kill the time”).
