Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg is a teenage dirtbag, baby. He cannot hide this fact, whether or not you recognize his distinct vocal similarity to one of the lesser bucket-hatted one-hit wonders. Zahner-Isenberg was 19 when Avi Buffalo released their auspicious and "really, really horny" debut, and the four years leading up to At Best Cuckold have taken him well past drinking age. Every time it appears that Avi Buffalo’s music has matured to a point where it qualifies as college rock (or even dad rock), Zahner-Isenberg can’t keep his pubescent impulses at bay. During “Memories of You”, he sings, "My bones are press/ Up to your chest", at least according to what the lyrics sheet says, since it clearly sounds like he's singing, "my boner pressed up to your chest."
But At Best Cuckold isn't a confused or contradictory record, as the dissonance between Avi Buffalo’s progression and Zahner-Isenberg’s regressive lapses make it an intriguing and relatable document of internal struggle. And that struggle is more valuable than assurance, as Avi Buffalo’s brand of indie-rock might otherwise play it too straight. Whether they’re technically a Long Beach or Los Angeles band is a moot point—they’re West Coast indie, mostly cruising up and down the Pacific Coast Highway while edging towards the area’s outer extremities. Everything maintains a kind of regional flair, an ambition that’s cloaked by geniality; its atmosphere is dusky, twilight and ineffably California, and they could nuzzle into Laurel Canyon between the mystic hippies and the countrified indie scene of Beachwood Sparks. Zahner-Isenberg also has a knack for James Mercer’s fussy, ship-in-a-bottle craftsmanship and seeming dichotomy between lyrical preciousness and guitar virtuosity similar to Built to Spill circa There’s Nothing Wrong With Love.
So Avi Buffalo haven’t really expanded their range; they’ve gotten deeper and rootsier, making a record whose confidence is manifested by restraint. Opener "So What" finds Zahner-Isenberg handling a nimble melody in his middle register, while the chorus shrugs, a resigned, two-note mutter. The anthemic guitar strumming in "Two Cherished Understandings" is the closest they get to courting an unabashed singalong like "What’s In It For?", though it teases at a huge chorus that never comes; at less than two minutes, it’s presented as more of an interlude. Choruses in general are switched out for nifty piano licks ("She Is Seventeen") or glassy harmonies ("Overwhelmed With Pride"). You don’t get much of Zahner-Isenberg’s piercing higher range or his surprisingly hotshot guitar soloing, two things that defined and distinguished Avi Buffalo; the one time they do re-emerge is on, appropriately enough, "Memories of You".
Memories really don’t play as much of a role here as a whole anyway. Avi Buffalo felt nostalgic by default if you were older than the band, serving as a kind of aural summer camp. They were the hormone-charged campers, confounded by their own bodies; at other points, they were the counselors sneaking off at night to get drunk and go hook up themselves. At Best Cuckold is taken from the exact place Zahner-Isenberg inhabited in the interim—that of a dilettantish, kinda-college student, sorta taking himself and his relationships seriously while staying sorta pervy on Instagram. There he is on the cover, guitar and half-filled Solo cup on one side and likely a frightening world of obligation on the outside. He may get on with the day, but the look on his face tells you, “You go ahead, I’m gonna be here for a while.”
At Best Cuckold abides by that more thoughtful, ceiling-gazing mindset. He described his writing process to Pitchfork as, "using this channel to talk about anything that's coming to mind...looking back and thinking, 'What am I writing?' Because you're trying to creatively express yourself, you'll end up with something you wouldn't have been able to tell yourself otherwise." And Zahner-Isenberg has big ideas on his mind—loneliness, escape, maturity, drugs, y’know, the usual. However, too often, in trying to tell himself what he’s feeling, he loses the listening, rambling too far from the emotional center.
Though the more lurid lyrics on At Best Cuckold may cause an occasional wince, they're necessary to bring Zahner-Isenberg back into the moment. During "Memories of You", "Bitch, I’m on fire" rhymes with "You got magnum desire/ I’m a cheeseball on fire", all while he questions the trustworthiness of his own perception. When he later admits, "Couple nights ago I ran over two dogs/ Then I hate them after", the scariest part isn’t his lack of pity—it’s him singing the title: "Think It’s Gonna Happen Again". "Oxygen Tank" imagines Anton Chigurh exacting revenge on Zahner-Isenberg for loving too hard. He is "Relatively/ Inconspicuously/ Overwhelmed with pride" upon realizing, "The birds seem so fucking free/ They’re nothing compared to me." During "Two Cherished Understandings", he mewls, "Years ago, I told you/ ‘Makin’ love, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,'" which possibly references a Chris Rock bit about cornbread. Avi Buffalo are trying and failing to act their age on At Best Cuckold, and ain’t nothin’ wrong with that either.
