With four EPs and one live album released since forming in 2016, Arts Fishing Club is gearing up to release their debut full-length, Rothko Sky. The Nashville-based indie rock outfit, most commonly compared to bands such as Mt. Joy, Caamp, and Wilderado, is pulling out all the stops to solidify their signature sound woven with deep cross-genre influence.
Rothko Sky is a thoughtful, creative, and often autobiographical deep dive into the complex arc of a passionate, confusing, and heartache-inducing romance. Mirroring the story that frontman Christopher Kessenich tells in the lyrics, the music takes unique shape in the various peaks and valleys – offering joyful moments to dance along to and somber moments to cry to.
The album starts with “foster falls,” named after a real and quite beautiful waterfall / camping site that I have actually had the opportunity to visit many years ago. The song is downright lovely, offering soft, almost island-like guitar tones, head-bopping rhythm, and very clever wordplay. We learn of a true love story told by Kessenich involving a first-date camping trip and a sudden falling in love. Perhaps my only critique on this album is the nature of this story itself…there must have been some real faith in each other to want to spend a first date sleeping alone in a tent surrounded by Tennessee wilderness. I do have many questions about this but I’ll save them for another time.
We keep the upbeat vibes going into “space cow” and it really starts to feel like this will be a feel-good, bop down the street on a sunny day type album. It isn’t until track three kicks in where the illusion of constant joy starts to shatter away. With “hello heartbreak,” as the name might suggest, we start to face that familiar darkness of love’s downfall. This track begins to round out the layered sound that Arts Fishing Club is offering to listeners. This feels like a blues song at its core. I hear some Shaky Graves in this tune. It has a real heavy, soulful guitar that rolls you along and opens up for various solo moments. Lyrically, Kessenich speaks to “heartbreak” like an old friend, or at least an old acquaintance coming around again like the nuisance it is.
The middle of the album, from “hello heartbreak” through “bad = woman = bad” is very interesting to me for a few reasons. We are on a journey through the winding road of a break up, though Kessenich leaves his ex on as good of terms as one can ask for. And as we do this, the music takes many shapes. We hear a quiet, tender, and sometimes spacey structure on “arizona” until it really opens up to send the subject of the story on her encouraging way: “I hope you lay yourself down between a lover and a Rothko Sky.” This balancing act of quiet, sensitive guitar and heavier blues or folk/americana influence is really the heart of Rothko Sky. I hear familiar artists in these songs such as Rayland Baxter, Jack Johnson, and even some early John Mayer. All of this complex songwriting really fits with the lyrical theme of this portion of the album.
We end with an absolute boot-stomping, “let’s all raise our glasses” toast to acceptance. Although it’s not acceptance of being alone or giving up on love, as some heartbreak albums might detail. Rather, “tornado text” leans into it all and, as the band puts it, offers a “surrender to our universal love of falling in love.” This is a celebration song and it really does feel like the perfect conclusion to a meandering tale of relatable romance.
RothkoSky is out on June 16th. Listen to the latest single below:
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