Indie Music Album Reviews

Austin John - Survive Each Other

11/20/2024

Austin John

Survive Each Other
self-released; 2024

TOP ALBUM

By Dino DiMuro

Austin John is the middle name of Todd Austin John Elsliger, who’s also the singer/guitarist and founder of Toronto’s Austin John (the band). Recording and performing since 2006, this pop rock ensemble emerged from three years of Covid isolation with all the songs ready for its newest album titled Survive Each Other.

Austin John has been featured on CBC Radio, Jazz FM, and CIUT while also performing at indie music venues across Toronto and Montreal. Its previous album “The Better Way Back When” was favorably reviewed by Pitch Perfect in 2021. The band mentions a diverse group of influences including Tears For fears, Belle and Sebastian, Elliott Smith, Kathleen Edwards, Steely Dan, The Replacements, Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, Wilco and The Shins. This new album features some of Toronto’s best musicians, with guest solos by Tara Davidson and Luis Deniz, keyboards by Stu Harrison, and a duet with Shannon Butcher. The songs themselves explore themes of mid-life crises, writer's block, injustice, fear of change, love that endures and a longing for stability.

Basic tracks were recorded at Rolling Pictures Studio with additional overdubs recorded at Elsliger’s Logic home studio. To these ears the album plays as clean as any full-studio production. Though the song topics are sometimes comically simple or simply comic, the arrangements are always expansive, detailed and exactly right. These songs are so good there’s no way I’ll be able to cover them in detail, but here’s an overview.

“Sadie” starts intimately with just Elsliger’s picked electric guitar and hushed, sincere vocals, then quickly adds a studio full of instruments including Rhodes electric piano, a horn section, tight drums and harmony singers. The lyrics are delightful (and going forward, they always will be) with little slice-of-life moments that bring this love song to vivid life (“You made sounds that kept us up all night / Made a mess of everything in sight…”). The sophistication of Elsliger’s arrangements approaches Burt Bacharach territory, which leaves me in awe. If that’s not enough, there’s a fuzzy but gorgeous guitar solo at the end.

“Irrelevant” is a song that put me in mind of Steely Dan, even before I saw them on the list of influences. The lyrics are very funny, describing a “new life” where the narrator is “not keeping up with every single trend… so what do I care what music all the cool kids are listening to? / But I do!” The piano work here is amazing and the fuzz guitar moments remind me of Steely’s “Reeling In The Years.”

“Apples” has a main melody that’s similar to a soul hit I can’t place right now. It’s another jazzy tune with a laid-back vibe very much like Michael Franks, with an incredible horn section and more of those keyboards that seem to follow every note Elsliger sings. The song humorously deals with all the “bad apples” in life who wreck things for everyone else, in the thematic style of Alanis Morrissette’s “Ironic” (but making a lot more lyrical sense). “Stuck” takes a folky Simon and Garfunkel-like left turn with some especially nice vocals that are not overwhelmed by a big arrangement. It’s surely one of the sweetest songs about being artistically “blocked” I’ve ever heard! “Small Town” is an upbeat remembrance of the joys and intrigues of growing up in a tiny community as a skateboarding kid, learning guitar at school, and breaking the rules.

Though Austin John is overall a bit more slick and commercial than many of the band’s influences, I may be hearing a bit of The Replacements in the title track “Survive Each Other.” At any rate it’s probably the most rock-heavy song here. “In Love” is a gently-picked acoustic-style tune featuring gorgeous vocal interplay with guest Shannon Butcher, suggesting both Elliott Smith and his friend and collaborator Mary Lou Lord. The horn solo again takes me to Burt Bacharach. “Leave” sees the funk undercurrent of John’s music brought to the fore. “You Make” concludes the album with a John Fahey-style picking scheme and a final set of intimate and comforting lyrics. It’s one of the loveliest songs with some of the coolest fuzz guitar proclamations along the way. “You make me feel like myself,” Elsliger concludes.

I admit I was thunderstruck by the quality of the writing, the playing and the recording of this album. It’s damned close to flawless and you’d love to own it!