Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye)

Even in the throes of heartbreak, ROLE MODEL’s Tucker Pillsbury can’t help but write golden, luminous hooks. On his sophomore full-length, <i>Kansas Anymore</i>, he sings of love, sometimes, but mostly of love lost. He’s a broken spirit, looking for a way forward, and this angst is perfectly opposed by the sugary sweet deliveries he sprinkles throughout the project.

Take opener “Writing’s on the Wall,” which finds Pillsbury nursing his wounds, unable to explain to his father that his feelings are different from the way his old man felt. “Dad’s on the phone and he’s lecturing me/’Bout a girl that he met when he was 19,” he sings a cappella, before pulsing drums and crunching acoustic guitar chords transport the singer to the rolling hills of Laurel Canyon circa 1970.

On “Superglue,” Pillsbury finds himself in the middle of a fling turned serious, employing stripped-back instrumentation that allows him plenty of room to outline the narrative stakes. “I can make it complicated,” he threatens, before knowing emotions will only cause harm: “You just want a little TLC.” Throughout <i>Kansas Anymore</i>, Tucker Pillsbury is loving the wrong person at the wrong time, wanting dinner when they want coffee, or thwarting off a desperate partner he thought to be a friend.