With their debut self-titled full-length, Bonny Doon make it seem like Detroit is due for an alt-country revival. Bonny Doon is at once jagged and unfinished, languid and detail-oriented, restless and at peace. Perhaps songwriters Bill Lennox and Bobby Colombo, bassist Joshua Brooks, and drummer Jake Kmiecik’s time in local acts like Tyvek and Growwing Pains are to attribute for the streamlining of genres, though even that passes off the kismet their sound stirs up.
Bonny Doon recline deep in the kind of folk music that gives off its own warmth, where a drunken evening filled with texts from his mom on “I See You” offers a laugh or the confident piano chords in “Evening All Day Long” suggest resilience. But underneath their blues-tinged instrumentals is abject loneliness. “(Crowded)” is five minutes of Neil Young-style apathy. “Relieved” channels Smog and Kurt Vile shrugs. “What Time Is It in Portland?” sees Colombo pining after a lost love, detailing friendships he let dissolve and a willful ignorance of how to fix it all. Like any successful singer, he’s introspective even when he sings like there’s no point in carrying on.
A sliver of their punk roots slip into Bonny Doon to give their beezy country some rock bite, though it varies in form. There’s cuts like “Summertime Friends,” where half-spoken lyrics about mindless relationships recall the deadpan delivery of Parquet Courts. Elsewhere are distorted guitar chases speeding alongside lively drumming, like on “Lost My Way.” So when a song like “Never Been to California”—which employs a honky-tonk bass part and shaky organ—plays, the tone change feels like a payoff instead of a downshift.
Their best mode is when Bonny Doon take a step back, brush their hands, and accept a role as an observer. The only way to counter a crumbling world with their surroundings moving at full tilt is to create stability. Much of this tone comes from the album’s construction: each member passed the songs around to flesh out instrumentals. Part of Bonny Doon was recorded in Russell Industrial Center, one of the city’s biggest arts redevelopment projects, and over the three years it took to release the full-length, outsiders snatched up cheap real estate across the city, placing capitalism's ethics at the forefront of their minds. Bonny Doon aren’t singing about Detroit specifically, but they bear witness to the city’s evolution—or lack thereof—whether they want to or not, and the ways in which it sours their mood is evident. When Lennox sings “You’re right/Yeah, I gotta grow up,” on “You Can’t Hide,” it’s not charged with motivation or promise. It’s empty. He agrees to change but the energy to do so was long ago stripped, hence why he sees himself reflected in the bottom of a wine bottle and fading neon signs. They know change will happen, but they also know they have so little to do with the course it takes. Why not watch the madness unfold and shrug its worst parts off?
That hopeless undertone to their otherwise easygoing country rock gives them a distinguished voice. Should they continue to hone it, they can carve their own distinctions, stepping away from the Bill Callahan and David Berman similarities to become an RIYL descriptor themselves. An album of sunlit melodies with the shadows of Detroit looming over it delivers more than expected; it’s not easy creating a doleful aftertaste that never quite dampens spirits, but Bonny Doon pull it off. By the time that complexity in their songwriting reveals itself, you’re already on the next listen, fully aware of humanity’s cessation and the band’s decision to cozy up on the porch to watch. Nothing articulates the warmth of their nonchalant despair like the line: “I was staring at the setting sun and I realized my time had run out/And I was relieved.” Maybe we should be doing the same.
