by Morgan Troper (@mo_troper)
Jimmy Montague is a bit of an outsider. The New York songwriter is signed to exalted punk label Chillwavve Records and he could be considered a second cousin to the burgeoning Fifth Wave Emo scene—though his influences are markedly different from his peers’.
Online, Montague has positioned himself as the scene’s resident Classic Rock Guy—he quotes Randy Newman lyrics on Twitter, has cited solo Paul McCartney as an influence in an Alternative interview from 2019, and has expressed a desire to become the “Harry Nilsson of DIY.” Most of the time, these types of declarations should be taken with a grain of salt—classic rock carries some cachet again and the vintage Steely Dan apparel market is booming, after all. But, as his second album Casual Use makes clear, Montague is no phony.
The album’s title track kicks off with a short sequence of plaintive, acoustic jazz chords, before blooming into a full on yacht rock fan barbecue, replete with horns and banana fingers piano. It’s equal parts Chicago and Michael McDonald, which likely wouldn’t have been a compliment in any other decade. Wry lines like “Been a couple of years since I reached for whiskey on the rocks” suggest Montague’s aware he’s working with an anachronistic idiom—yet there’s also a real, unironic appreciation of the form here, which distinguishes much of Casual Use from, say, a song like “Cocaine” by Heidecker and Wood.
Montague’s gifts as a composer are undeniable—but as an arranger, he’s downright masterful. From a purely sonic perspective, “Always You”—which was the first single released off Casual Use, and its centerpiece—is maybe the best pomp-rock has sounded since the first few Rufus Wainwright albums. From the blaring woodwinds, to the chiming piano and wash of vocal harmonies, “Always You” imagines Andy Shauf’s The Party if it didn’t sound like it was recorded in a library. The boldest moment on Casual Use is also one of its mellowest—penultimate track “Stuck With You,” a big, bad ballad reminiscent of Elton John or Warren Zevon at his most depressed.
Casual Use is brimming with musical references to soft-rock antiheroes, which sounds like a hilarious oxymoron—Montague is obviously in thrall to artists like Andrew Gold, Randy Newman, and, of course, his personal idol, Harry Nilsson. Though Casual Use also proves that, in the right hands, ornate, hi-fi pop rock can still sound novel—and it can even rock. In that sense, Montague is sort of like the East Coast analog to Phoenix’s Diners—another artist who’s made seventh chords and three-part vocal harmonies palatable to people with dog-eared copies of Our Band Could Be Your Life. When it comes to rock sub-genres, DIY has never been more inclusive—hopefully that means Casual Use gets the recognition it deserves, from the punks and beyond.