Growing up isn't easy. Just ask Owen Ashworth. Under the name Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Ashworth spent over a decade giving voice to the anxieties of young misfits with battery-powered keyboards serving as his primary accompaniment. His best songs during these years were miniature bildungsromans, richly detailed portraits of characters fighting to achieve adulthood despite personal failings, everyday struggles, and diminished horizons. By the end of his run as CFTPA, this tension between immaturity and responsibility had reached its logical apex: parenthood. The songs on CFTPA's 2009 swan song*,* Vs. Children, read like cautionary tales*—*it's an album populated by absent fathers, abandoned mothers, and the children hanging in the balance.
Having all but exhausted the artistic possibilities built into the Casiotone name, Ashworth rebranded himself as Advance Base in 2011 and set to work de-modernizing his sound. He's now more likely to reach for a Fender Rhodes over a Casio SK-1 and has been studying time-tested pop songcraft, as his recent covers of classic rock and gospel artists attest. His debut as Advance Base, 2012's A Shut-In's Prayer, felt like a natural extension of his previous work, 10 short vignettes soundtracked by charmingly homespun downer-pop.
Nephew in the Wild continues along this same path, employing the warm sonics of vintage gear in service of Ashworth's storytelling. Many of the longstanding hallmarks of his sound can be found here*—twinkling melodies, sustained minor chords—*though everything feels a bit looser this time around. Ashworth leans on electric piano for most of the lead parts, with guitar, autoharp, synthesized mellotron, and the occasional analog drum machine filling things out. The most striking change, however, is Ashworth's vocals. After years of singing with a flat intonation that gave his voice the tenor of a resigned sigh, on many of Nephew in Wild's songs, Ashworth pushes himself to be more expressive, with results that are more tuneful, if still every bit as charmingly gruff.
Musically, Nephew in the Wild feels like a logical progression from Ashworth's past work; lyrically, however, it isn't always as clear of a step forward. Most of the album's narratives focus on flinty Midwesterners coping with decidedly adult problems: addiction, jealousy, dead-end jobs. These characters feel slightly out of reach for Ashworth and their stories often lack the depth and novelistic detail for which he's known. The post-collegiate malaise of CFTPA characters felt real*—*you could imagine them pulling up a barstool next to you and unburdening themselves of their troubles. By way of comparison, the characters on Nephew in the Wild never quite come into focus.
But then there's "Kitty Winn", the album's final and best song. Over a simple, lullaby-like melody, Ashworth details the joys of married life and parenthood as he looks back on the recklessness of his youth. The song is a clear outlier in Ashworth's catalog; here melancholy takes a backseat to lucid, unguarded sincerity. Summing up the difference between then and now, Ashworth gingerly sings, "I'm not out looking for something/ I haven't found/ You won't see me around/ I've got a family now." He sounds like a man who's managed to navigate life's pitfalls, arriving at the contentment that so often eludes his characters. On "Kitty Winn" it feels like Ashworth finds his footing as Advance Base, delivering a song that's as affecting as his best work even if there's little that's "painfully alone" about it. Growing up might not be easy but it seems like Owen Ashworth is getting the hang of it.
