Avi Buffalo – At Best Cuckold (2014)

Rough Trade's albums of the month have provided me with many great albums. Avi Buffalo's second album is one of the best ones I've found that way. He makes amazing indie rock with great melodies and great song structures. With a first glance, the songs sound very simple, but when you consider them a bit more, they have amazingly varied structures both when it comes to rhythms and melodies. Avi Buffalo's vocals climb effortlessly to high notes and the instruments are played very masterfully. I especially like the fact that there are amazing guitar solos in these songs. There aren't enough good guitar solos anymore and I'm always thrilled when I can find a new guitar hero to look up to. Also the bass lines are quite amazing and there are string arrangements in the songs that can be compared to the ones on The Beatles albums. And the pianos are also just fantastic.



I remember listening to this album the first time and being really impressed from the first minutes. This is the kind of straightforwardly good pop music that I really liked in the 90's and I think many bands spend too much time thinking about how they can sound different from anyone else with the expense of joy of music. I feel like I can hear the genuine joy in Avi Buffalo's music. I was listening to this album at work and right after work I had to rush to the record store to buy this album. I bought it on vinyl and even got a bonus CD with it with a couple of extra songs. Later on I've found that Avi Buffalo has become one of my most listened to artists in recent years.

The album starts quite slowly with So What, that doesn't necessarily yet show all the potential that Avi Buffalo is hiding. It's only the second song Memories of You that really convinced me. Right from the first notes the hairs on my skin raise up from the sheer greatness of the music. And the guitar solo is just amazing. It reminds me a bit of Wilco's guitar solo in their great song Impossible Germany. I also really love the line "I'm a cheeseball on fire" in the lyrics. Can't Be Too Responsible changes the mood from upbeat and happy to a bit more melancholic, but this is an amazing song as well. It has that great 80's new wave kind of loose and treble-filled bass sound. Two Cherished Understandings shows the more delicate side of Avi Buffalo and shows that he can also make amazing sounding songs with a bit more lo-fi production. Overwhelmed With Pride shows how amazing acoustic guitar player Avi Buffalo is. Also the lyrics are really great in all their absurdity. The orchestrations are also great. Found Blind returns the records sounds into more upbeat atmospheres. She Is Seventeen sounds a lot like early Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev. I Think It's Gonna Happen Again is probably my favourite song on this album. The melody and the composition is absolutely brilliant. Oxygen Tank is a beautiful ballad that shows Avi Buffalo's vocal skills. Won't Be Around No More is a great way to end the album with an emotional and buzzing shoegaze number.

I haven't watched Avi Buffalo music videos before now, but I'm really thrilled that they exist. I Think It's Gonna Happen Again video is not that interesting as a video, but the song is just so good that I'm going to link that here. It shows the troubled mind of Avi Buffalo.

This post ended up being one very high praise, but when an album is this good, there's not much else I could do. This is one of my most listened to albums of the last couple of years and I am really waiting to hear what he comes up with next. And if only I had a chance to see this guy live soon, that would be amazing.

Listen to the album on Spotify.