If M. Lockwood Porter made me decide to breakup with my most recent person, then NQ Arbuckle’s the one who planted the seed of the idea. (So thanks or maybe not? But actually, thanks.)
I almost didn’t write the review. This album is damnably hard to find online through legal channels. It’s not that I didn’t want to buy it — I just wasn’t sure how I could get sample tracks up here. But when I finally got my ears on it, I fell incontrovertibly in love (perhaps there’s only room in my heart for girls or sad songs) and knew that you, dear reader, needed to fall in love, too. Arbuckle’s warm earthiness will tug at your heart strings whether you’re feeling contemplative, sad, or thrilled to be alive.
Overall, though, The Future Happens Anyway has melancholy in spades (as if you couldn’t tell from the title.) The opening track, “Gravity,” encapsulates the rest of the album: Arbuckle’s warm, earthy voice envelopes you in familiar country rock chord progressions and astute, literary songwriting. “Hospitals” became my favorite song on the album — if it’s about what I think it’s about, it echoes exactly what I wanted to say to a friend of mine recently but couldn’t find the words for. More importantly, it’s an unabashed celebration of live in an album that’s mostly about its little disappointments. It’s the anthem you should have on your permanent playlist.
As for the song that made me think about breaking it off? That was “Hot Shot”:
I think of you like fire
You’re a patio smoker [what is that?]
You’re hotter than laughter
You’re all that I fear
And everything I’m after
Seems to me like if you’re with someone whom you don’t feel that way about (or they don’t feel that way about you), it’s time to queue up “I Know You’re Gonna Leave Me”
NQ Arbuckle — Official, Facebook, Purchase from Six Shooter Records