“STAY OFF MY LAWN: SUMMER COLDS BOTH GROW UP AND STAY EXACTLY THE SAME ON MISSING OUT”

Missing Out, the new release from Southern Oregon band, Summer Colds, continues boldly along the path that frontman Nic McNamara began on its 2019 release, Here Comes Nothing, offering eight tracks of pristinely produced and cleverly written ‘90s-style power pop.

While Here Comes Nothing focused on the foibles of binge drinking and self-destructive impulses, Missing Out sees McNamara turning his wry lyrical lens towards growth and self-improvement; leaving bad relationships and looking forward. “My friends told me to live a life worth writing about so I’m living without you,” he sings on “Say It Back.” “You were the first to break out of it, worst mistake,” he sings on “Dear Life.” On “If You Know” he sings of “a cage that we tried to make to keep me safe from friends that I made to lead me astray.”

The melodies are attentively crafted, without so much as an excess syllable, or a single shoehorned in lyrical phrase. The fuzzy chords, major key harmonies, and clever turns of phrase all come together to form songs that could pass for lost Fountains of Wayne or Supergrass tracks if one squinted just enough. The Adam Schlesinger comparisons are especially present in the way the verses of songs like “All Time High” and “Say it Back” are as melodically catchy as the hooks.

McNamara isn’t forging new ground sonically on this record; personally or in a larger sense. But he isn’t letting so much as a single weed grow on the perfectly manicured lawn he planted on the band’s first record either. From both a musical and literary standpoint, Missing Out is engaging from start to finish and should be filed under Southern Oregon’s growing collection of hidden gems.

- Josh Gross at Jefferson Public Radio