Side Pony goes down very, very smooth. How smooth? Like an earworm—or maybe an earthworm—making its cool, moist way through a pile of decaying leaf matter, leaving a trail of casings in its wake. And like the best worm droppings, the stuff coming out the back end of Side Pony is gold for growing.
As desirable as a bucketload of hermaphroditic Lumbricus rubellus, or the wriggling vibrato of Rachael Price, or a songwriting, trumpet-playing guitarist named McDuck. Thriving on scraps, like bassist Bridget Kearney, who never stays in one style for long, and still manages to write the band’s richest songs. Happiest in the dark, like drummer Mike Calabrese, whose “Godawful Things” opens the album. How smooth? So smooth that Side Pony sounds like crap the first couple of times you listen, and it’s not until the third or fourth that you hear how smart it is. How organic. How rich in nutrients. How thoroughly these conservatory grads are digesting their jazz/pop/soul influences and squeezing them into something unforgettable.
—Kenny Berkowitz
