Wild Pink has been building a strong reputation over the past decade as wordsmiths and soundsmiths, masters of vivid lyrical storytelling that wields specific details to transport you to their world, and spinners of spacious sounds to wrap their tales up in. Think of Bill Callahan and David Berman as kindred spirits, and perhaps MJ Lenderman as a contemporary.
Today, the band played a WXPN Free at Noon Concert on the road at Ardmore Music Hall in support of their fifth studio album, Dulling the Horns, released in October on Fire Talk Records. As Pitchfork pointed out in its review earlier this year, this album doesn’t have the narrative focus of the band’s previous outing ILYSM — a body of work written in response to frontman John Ross’ cancer diagnosis — but what it does have is a stylistically bold collection of songs presenting snapshots of life in the anxiety-ridden 2020s.
At Ardmore, the opening roar of the title track dispensed wisdom about those emotional hangups that we all wrestle with: “If you don’t learn to let go sometimes, you’re gonna break your heart.” The sprinting indie-Americana groove of “Eating The Egg Whole” feels like a reaction to our collective bad habit of dissociating on our devices: “put your phone down tonight cause you’re scared.”
The show wasn’t all advice-spouting, though; the classic indie rock tones of “Bonnie One” painted a picture of post-traumatic healing by casting the characters as dogs, while the downbeat (and mildly doomy) “Disintigrate” offered impressions of letting go: “I’m just like an eagle/ Flying down Meeker / On a rented e-bike / I don’t have to try.”
The band is wrapped up its 2024 tour schedule, but heads out on the road again in late January. Find full dates here and check out a gallery of photos from the show down below.