Jonathan Rado

Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado returns with a new solo album, and, after years in the production chair of records from Beach Fossils, Weyes Blood, The Lemon Twigs, and Tim Heidecker, he fully embraces the studio-as-instrument mentality. Rado has been steadily building out the ‘70s pop sound that’s crept into many indie outfits, but the overall complexity and composure didn’t creep into his last solo album. More of a sketchbook of ideas, the feeling that permeated Law and Order was Rado searching for something new. Each song felt like an indictment of his sound, but the struggle never landed at the brilliance of his past works. On For Who The Bell Tolls For, he swings back into the comfort of his pop toolbox, but this time he lets the experimentation underscore the album’s edges, rather than let the dial flip through whims and workshop ideas. The balance succeeds and this winds up his most ambitious album in some time.

The static and tension of Law and Order still find their way into the mix, crackling in intros and foaming through the bridges and backgrounds. The focus, though, remains Rado’s sparkling sense of pop. He leans into hooks with an unbuttoned grace — a three-drink sway that’s studied but natural. On the coiffed and composed “Don’t Wait Too Long,” Rado offers up one of his catchiest and most refined hooks, tossing the listener into a velvet curtain of keys, coos, and drum crashes. By contrast, “Farther Away” strips things down to the chassis, letting rhythm rule, building to a snaggletoothed fever by the time it breaks and rolls into the smooth seas of “Walk Away.” Rado closes out the album with the dirge, “Yer Funeral,” letting the edges creep over the crest once more, a fitting send off for this album. Whether the Fox has been on your speakers or you’re a fan of Rado’s hand on the hues of other gas-crisis glam hits he’s been a part of, this is some of his best work, and the start of a new solo chapter.

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