This is my fifth time reviewing a Nick Piunti album. I never get tired of listening to this man's music, and I never get tired of writing about it. He's a master craftsman of melodic pop-rock who's making the best music of his life five decades into his career. Out today on Jem Records, Heart Inside Your Head is Piunti's sixth album since 2014 and his second with his band The Complicated Men (Jeff Hupp on bass, Ron Vensko on drums, Kevin Darnall on keyboards, and Joe Daksiewicz on guitar). With this release, you can really hear Piunti & The Complicated Men coming into their own as a proper rock band. While this album fits perfectly well under the banners of power pop and indie rock, it's full of songs that sound like honest-to-goodness radio hits. It's accessible to anyone who likes pop, rock, or any form of melody-driven music. The production (courtesy of Geoff Michael and the band) is absolutely top-of-the-line. The musicianship is extraordinary. And from start to finish, the songs are stone-cold gems (no pun intended).
Piunti's "thing" has always been his ability to write super-catchy pop songs that run surprisingly deep lyrically. He and The Complicated Men continue that approach on Heart Inside Your Head, but with a broadened stylistic range. If you're looking for power pop, "My Mind (Plays Tricks on Me)," "One of the Boyz," and "Keys to Your Heart" will hit the spot in a big way. Songs like "Slave To It" and "Hopes Up" are the kind of middle-of-the-road pop-rock earworms you used to be able to count on hearing in the finest dentist offices and banks. "Trying Too Hard" sounds like it belongs on a "1998 alternative hits" playlist smack dab between Semisonic and The Wallflowers. "Nothing New" is such a perfect slice of old school adult contemporary balladry that I can imagine Peter Cetera and Richard Marx fighting to the death for the rights to record it. Speaking of ballads, "I Want Everything" and "Gloves Come Off" just might be the two high points of this album. It has been my experience as a longtime fan of music that ballads are something I'm usually just willing to tolerate. But in my daily listening to Heart Inside Your Head, "I Want Everything" and "Gloves Come Off" are songs I always look forward to hearing. If you're going to work with a formidable rock band and a top-flight producer, these are the kinds of tunes you should aspire to write: sophisticated & deep yet timelessly melodic. Michael has a gift for being able to make a record sound massive and pristine but not overproduced. He is the perfect collaborator for Nick Piunti & The Complicated Men.
Nick Piunti has always half-jokingly described his music as "dad rock." Well, then. If well-crafted and immaculately-produced pop-rock is dad rock, Piunti & The Complicated Men have just made the best damn dad rock album in years! I remember putting Heart Inside Your Head on for the first time. Every time I thought I had arrived at the "hit," the next song would come along and make me reconsider! It's usually utter nonsense when dopes like me pronounce a certain artist's newest release as their "best one yet." But repeated listens to Heart Inside Your Head have me convinced that Nick Piunti has just released the best record of his life. Of course he didn't do it alone, so let's have three cheers for The Complicated Men! If the powers that be ever allow artists over 25 to be played on contemporary hit radio again, this band will be all kinds of huge!
Josh, I'm humbled. Once again thank you for a fantastic review! my favorite one yet!
ReplyDelete