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Remember our May 2022 Artist of the Month Good Looks? Well, despite a Bummer Year tour-skewing injury for lead guitarist Jake Ames – who’s also taken some time out to foster his other project The Stacks – this jangly four-piece is still going strong. Rumor has it the Austin quartet’s got a slew of new tunes for us coming in the near future, and more concretely than that, they’ll be spending the rest of July on the road.
Yes, after a “ciao for now” appearance at The Long Center last Thursday, Good Looks will be gigging across the nation and spreading their version of the Austin sound in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and beyond. But you don’t have to trek up to one of their dozen-plus summer tour stops nor wait ’til their Labor Day homecoming to get a glimpse at Good Looks’ latest piece of bittersweet indie rock gloom.
Released earlier this morning, “Broken Body” flexes Good Looks’ signature cynical and purposefully-semi-deflated sound from its very first downbeat. What starts as a spited reflection on flawed humanity and faith fizzles into a gorgeously introspective chorus, whose dreamy chord changes underline a decade-and-a-half of lost time on behalf of Tyler Jordan. Anecdotal apparitions of oak trees, dry creeks, and dragonflies provide a picturesque portrait to poignant memories of a friend’s family member before another chorus and a soft sigh of a final note, all bookended by Ames’ heavily distorted guitar and the band’s dynamic ability to perform as one. “Broken Body” definitely shares Bummer Year‘s skeletal structure and keeps Good Looks’ high caliber of tastes in good shape, which on top of our ATX love, will hopefully keep Good Looks’ path far from dark on their way back home.
