On the packaging of New Entertainment, the sophomore album from young friend, Drew Tarves is pictured wearing a red-checkered flannel jacket. Turn the sleeve over and the same jacket occupies the entire back cover, its rumpled fabric looking wonderfully cosy and almost tactile.
It’s an image that conjures the Pacific Northwest grunge scene, and the music has a pleasing roughness, but little of grunge’s characteristic hostility or angst. Where Nirvana might have confronted the world with a clenched fist, young friend would rather pull up a chair and invite you in. His vocals occasionally drift into a detached, world-weary register, but an underlying warmth in his delivery makes this a considerably more welcoming proposition.
Perhaps the closest connection to Nirvana‘s Nevermind is structural. Both albums front-load their hardest-rocking material before closing with more ruminative songs featuring plaintive strings. Here, the appropriately named “Hard Rock” makes an immediate impression, while the closer, “If You See It on the News”, offers a more reflective conclusion. Yet the resemblance only goes so far.
A closer reference is the godfather of grunge, Neil Young, whose influence is apparent in the album’s blend of ragged guitar rock and unhurried songcraft. Young’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, his own sophomore record, is perhaps an unfair benchmark, given that it remains an almost uniquely compelling achievement.
The ringing guitar of “Miracle” comes closest to matching the irresistible catchiness of “Cinnamon Girl”. The album’s longest excursions condense the sense of exploration and discovery of “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand”. The title track is a slow-burning five-minute journey. Meanwhile, “Michael Wakes Up” takes a while to gather momentum before an instrumental eruption gives way to an extended, cathartic resolution.
There are also shades of Sonic Youth in the instrumental textures, some with the character of horns or keyboards, but they could be guitars manipulated to approximate those instruments. Whether this is a deliberate attempt to broaden the sonic palette or simply the happy accident of following a less predictable musical path is difficult to say. Either way, these unexpected flourishes bring welcome colour to an otherwise relatively straightforward collection of rock songs.
What makes young friend’s New Entertainment particularly appealing, though, is the sense of a full band making music together. Recorded live in the studio, its performances capture the spontaneous interplay of musicians sharing the same space, rather than the painstaking assembly of digitally layered parts. At a time when bedroom production and increasingly sophisticated technology have become commonplace, this approach feels meaningful.
Indeed, Tarves is preoccupied with the advance of AI and the possibility that human creativity might eventually become obsolete. The album’s very existence feels like an affirmation of the pleasure and unpredictability of people making things together. That concern with artificiality is counterbalanced by an affection for the familiar and the everyday.
“The Yard” finds comfort in the rituals and characters of a neighbourhood bar, while “Dad’s Garage” lovingly inventories the assorted possessions that become repositories of family memories. Even the title track imagines a world without the internet, asking whether we might rediscover the pleasure of making entertainment for ourselves. These are songs about holding on to people and places in a world seemingly determined to make everything disposable.
Perhaps what resonates most with me is Tarves’ nostalgia for a past he never actually experienced, as I’ve always been drawn to music from eras I didn’t live through. The records I return to for comfort aren’t reminders of a time of my own life that has since disappeared; they belong to no specific moment and therefore never really date. There’s something timeless about that relationship with music, and I suspect it’s precisely the quality young friend is seeking to capture.