The Breakup Society - So Much Unhappiness, So Little Time (2012)

The Breakup Society’s new record So Much Unhappiness, So Little Time… (Get Hip Recordings) features “The Way We Weren’t,” Ed Masley’s first co-write with John Wesley Harding, who also featured it on his new album, backed by Peter Buck, a handful of Decemberists and Scott McCaughey. On So Much Unhappiness, So Little Time, the band further expands the scope of their sound without turning their back on the pop sensibilities that set the standard on their Get Hip debut, James at 35, or the bittersweet lyrical qualities singer Ed Masley refined on the followup, Nobody Likes Winner. There are still plenty of rockers, from the reckless power-chord attack of “Here Comes Floyd” to the epic psychedelic splendor of “She Doesn’t Cross Against the Light.” But those rockers are offset this time by a soulful waltz called “Mary Shelley,” majestic guitar pop on “Your Invitation to Quit,” a hint of country on “The Upward Spiral” and the first songs Masley’s ever written on piano (“Supportin’ the War” and “Another Day in the Life”). “The Way We Weren’t,” co-written with John Wesley Harding, is a melancholy ballad fueled by aching vocals, chiming lead guitar and Mellotron. With Bob Hoag once again producing, the prevailing mood is bittersweet with hints of darkly comic humor and unmistakable empathy, from “Another Day in the Life,” where an aging groupie adjusts to the life at the back of the line, to “The Next Reunion,” where a struggling actor worries that the kids he went to high school with are all lying in wait to watch him fail.