Styrofoam Winos – Any River (2026)

…Like Hoboken’s finest, Styrofoam Winos are content to operate within the underground. Rather than striving to break through to a mass audience, they’ve spent the 2020s pursuing their muse and cultivating a network of likeminded music geeks in their home base of Nashville and across the country. They’re in the music business, but also the business of community. It’s what they’ve been up to in the years since they graduated from Belmont University and began jamming after shifts together at the now-defunct J&J’s Market And Cafe.
…They’ve all logged time in the Roadhouse Band with Ryan Davis, one of the breakout stars of the indie world in recent years, who released the Winos’ self-titled debut on his stellar Sophomore Lounge label in 2021. Another big fan…

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…is MJ Lenderman, who covered “Long Black Veil” with the Winos on his Live And Loose! live album in 2023 and has featured Nikrant in his band. For 2024’s Real Time, they moved to the reliably awesome Dear Life Records, co-run by Lenderman’s bandmate Jon Samuels.

It’s hard to pin down the Winos’ sound with much specificity, partially due to the “three songwriters” thing and partially due to a willingness to make many kinds of songs. I love that their debut album is categorized as “traditional folk” on Apple Music and begins with a post-punk track unlike anything else in their catalog. But it’s correct enough to say they operate at the intersection of indie rock and country, bringing a downbeat slacker energy and a charming sense of humor to rootsy rock ’n’ roll. If they’d showed up a few years earlier, maybe they’d have been on Paradise Of Bachelors alongside Nap Eyes, another great band with a similar disposition.

You get a sense of their range in Any River’s opening stretch. Turner takes the lead on “Pearls,” sort of a Courtney Barnett-meets-Real Estate groover blessed by chilled-out vibes, a sly shifting head-bob pulse, and a sneaky abundance of riffs on guitar and bass alike. (Key lyric: “You’ve got a pearl tucked inside of your clammy tendencies.”) Nikrant taps into his falsetto for the beautifully earnest Neil Young-ish love ballad “BBQ,” flanked by his bandmates’ glorious synths and vocal harmonies. (Key lyric: “Tomatoes and beans and scratched up knees in the summertime/ I believe in everything we’ve got cookin’ tonight.”) Then Kenkel takes the mic for “Somebody Wants To Send You A Message,” which sounds sort of like Dire Straits blasting on a houseboat, laced with cowbell, online ennui, and a skronking bass clarinet solo from producer Jim Marlowe. (Key lyric: “Enter my chatroom of passion.”)

The torrent of brilliant songwriting and winsome performances continues from there. With “Swimminin,” we get a scraggly rocker straight out of Wilco’s long tail; with “Off My Mind,” a sighing, soft-focus country song like Linda Ronstadt bleeding into Fleetwood Mac; with “New Friend,” a bossa-nova-inflected would-be ’70s sitcom theme with bonus flute, trumpet, and finger snaps. Talkbox, Rhodes, pedal steel, organ, marimba, windchime, vibraphone, melodica — they’re all wielded skillfully throughout, blurring together into gorgeous textures and bursts of quirky melody. Their choices suggest a restless creativity, like they’re pushing themselves to find fresh ideas and really having fun with it.

The fun includes some subtle flashes of comedy. There’s a late Pavement/early Jicks feel to much of the album, that pungent mix of loopiness and melancholia. But whereas Stephen Malkmus’ humor always felt like deflection, the Winos exude a playful grace, as if they’re laughing off this world’s travails with dignity. “The bird did its business on my hood again/ It’s time to get on to the next thing,” Kenkel observes on the bluegrass-inspired “Next Thing.” They’re also not above a good pun. I had to check my ears on “I Felt You” when I first heard Turner sing, “What’s for dinner? Eggs two ways/ I wanna meet you on the gastral plane.”

Sometimes the droll punchlines and deadpan wordplay give way to pure silliness. On the Turner-led closing track “Gettin’ Down,” after the Winos instruct us to “Be your own Elvis/ Uh huh huh” and “Be your own Marilyn/ Lookin’ good,” we’re told to “Be your own Hendrix/ Wah wah wah.” It never fails to make me smile. Yet with “Be your own Bambino/ Goin’ home,” the tone of the music shifts, and the laughter gives way to a peaceful state of grace. As they ease out of the album, a cloud of keyboard chords and guitar riffs consumes the mix — the sound of navigating this life’s drudgery with humble optimism, unyielding perseverance, and a little help from your friends. — Stereogum