Styrofoam Winos

Jokingly Styrofoam Winos refer to themselves as a “song Voltron from Nashville,” but there’s more than a nugget of truth under that wink and smile. The band brings together three solid songwriters, and like Galaxie 500 or Yo La Tengo before, them they are the kind of band whose members shine on their own but gain a particular glow when found in proximity. The band captures a cross-section of indie, country, and folk that feed off of each other, stewing their shared influences into an album that’s piquant and potent. The band’s as comfortable in the twang and amble of “Don’t Mind Me,” as they are on the broken-wing heartache of “Don’t Know What.” Eclecticism can sometimes sound disjointed but when it works just right it sounds as seamless as Real Time.

The key to the album, and perhaps the band itself, is the trio’s camaraderie. It feels like each song is sewn to make the other members smile. From the opening bleary-eyed strums of “Angel Flies Over,” arcing into humble three-part harmonies, the album’s comforts are apparent. If a batch of songs could be worn and patched, ripped, rumpled, darned, and laid out to iron in the cold light of morning, they’d sound something like the patchwork pearls on Real Time. The album is lived-in and stripped of pretense. It’s lost and found, an easy friend in all times.

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