It’s rough out there for lots of indie rock bands, but Austin’s Good Looks have really been through the shit. The day after they released their 2022 debut, Bummer Year, guitarist Jake Ames was nearly killed in a hit-and-run. The band put off touring while he slowly recovered, and when they did finally hit the road, their van caught fire and they lost everything: gear, instruments, laptops, merch, personal effects, everything. A less committed group might have taken either of these tragedies as a sign from the universe, but to their credit Good Looks are a foolhardy lot. While they don’t address those trials on their follow-up, Lived Here for a While, they play like their lives depend on it.
Lived Here for a While views the world from a blazing tour van. These songs aren’t just about what they see out on the road, but what they leave behind. Lovers grow distant, friends fade away, cities expand beyond recognition. “This used to be a Black neighborhood,” frontman Tyler Jordan exclaims on “White Out”, and few songwriters could make gentrification sound so deftly (or wittily: “Look out! They’re jogging! and they’re bringing their dogs with ’em!”). Whenever they tour, they never return to exactly where they left, which churns up a sense of unease in these songs: The tempos are just a little too fast; the guitars bypass jangle and head straight for the jitters.
Too often, indie self-awareness can come across as self-regarding and off-putting, like a novel about how hard it is to be a novelist. How many listeners can relate to tales of long hauls and empty venues? To their credit, Good Looks never whine about their fortunes, nor do they sound like they’re playing exclusively to other touring indie rock bands. Jordan makes it all relatable, as though touring were no different than any other low-paying gig in late-capitalist America. And he knows that lovers and spouses typically take the brunt of any artist’s frustrations. Jordan is an ambitious songwriter—and occasionally a messy one, as on “Self-destructor,” which lapses into condescension—but songs like “If It’s Gone” and especially “Desert” are distinguished by their generosity toward their subjects. Jordan apologizes rather than throws blame, and hopes it’ll make him a better man. As he sings on “Vaughn,” “Not every single lover has gotta be a sad song.”
Jordan was singing about these subjects on Bummer Year, but these new songs are more acute in their angst, more vivid in their arrangements, more volatile in their performances. As resourceful a songwriter as Jordan may be—with a casual lyricism that can turn a plainspoken phrase into a lighter-raising chorus—Good Looks were never merely his backing band. Racing through “Self-destructor” and churning up drama in “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” they take the curves a little too fast, but the rhythm section’s taut krautrock beats keep all tires on the pavement. And Ames always has a punchy riff on hard, or a trenchant guitar tone, or a blast of feedback to bolster Jordan’s vocals or wryly undercut him. Self-referential yet also self-critical, they play every song like it’s an argument for why they’re playing that song.
There’s a sharp desperation to Good Looks’ headlong heartland rock, as though they might be trying to outrun something. “I keep driving around, to try to make some strangers love me,” Jordan sings on “Can You See Me Tonight?,” and the line perfectly sums up the Sisyphean life of a touring band. Then he adds the kicker: “By the end of tonight, I’ll sing myself hoarse and I’ll still feel empty.” Without romanticizing their lives, they do manage to find something meaningful in that pursuit, even if it’s just another song to stave off the darkness.
Correction: A previous version of this review included a line about the song “Self-destructor” that could be misinterpreted. This has been amended.
