John Ross enlists the help of Meg Duffy, MJ Lenderman and friends on an excellent sixth Wild Pink LP, ‘Still Coming Down’ – one that turns the everyday into the thought-provoking in darkly comedic, guitar-driven fashion.

Stream: ‘Still Coming Down’ – Wild Pink

I’ve been kind of leaning into just letting my voice be what it is.

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A routine stop at a gas station, a trip to buy a new air conditioner, a neon-tinged walk around town:

The texture and canvas of life hums along through moments big and small, driven by the mundane and by the mundane-made-humorous, accented with dark humor and late-night film reruns.

At each turn, an undercurrent crackles like static, humming both with what’s said and what bubbles up in the quiet moments in between.

Food for thought is seemingly everywhere for indie rock luminary John Ross, the leader behind New York City-based Wild Pink and the astute mind behind its sixth LP, Still Coming Down.

The just-released nine-track outing marks the second Wild Pink offering on Fire Talk Records, painting a rich, reflective portrait of a distinct kind of heartland culture. That culture either changes just a little or a heck of a lot from town to town – if you know where to look.

If you’ve had your head stuck in the sand, Still Coming Down seems to say: Wake up, look around and find a different sort of understanding — at your own risk — around every corner. Beware, because this quality of knowledge, especially in the Internet age, can feel Lynch-ian and rather surreal at times.

Of course, the quiet absurdity of life rolls on, seen as the hazy sun looming over an outlet mall, or springing up in the form of a vulgar tattoo spotted at a gas station. In the world of Wild Pink, these exist alongside fleeting moments of beauty.

The soft-spoken Ross has a uniquely keen eye for documenting the good, the bad and the ugly, with lyricism that’ll make you chuckle or else shake your head in wonder within moments of each line.

This outlook first crystallized on 2018’s utterly remarkable Yolk in the Fur, where Ross added a lush flourish and gorgeous storytelling to the seemingly routine.

And while Still Coming Down is a more muscular record, it loses none of its nuance: Clever songwriting aplenty abounds.

Tracked in Asheville last year across one week at Drop of Sun under the guidance of producer and engineer Alex Farrar, the record is as spirited and revved-up as anything Ross has done under the Wild Pink moniker. Could this perhaps be the result of the fact that the singer-songwriter is seldom at rest?

“I’m kind of just always writing new songs, you know?” he told Atwood Magazine during a recent Zoom call from New York City.

Indeed, Ross teased the fact that as-yet-unreleased, in-progress material will make up part of the setlist for his band’s forthcoming European and U.S. tour, even as the proverbial ink dries on this latest record release.

Now based in Ridgewood, Queens after a stint upstate, Ross now juggles his creative output as the father of a toddler, often squeezing in an hour or so of evening writing while simultaneously compiling music and lyrics.

For as quick as the recording process was for Still Coming Down, it takes anywhere from two to four months for a song to start feeling finished, according to Ross. Once it’s been recorded, that “signed-sealed-delivered” effect feels more solidified.

At the same time, a more abbreviated recording process also perhaps lent itself to a less-is-more approach in the studio: Fewer vocal takes were used in an effort to better capture Ross’ live singing style.

“I’m not a great singer in the traditional sense,” he says. “I think that I’ve… always felt frustrated on the first several records about the vocals never… feeling good. I’ve been kind of leaning into just letting my voice be what it is.”

On Still Coming Down, Ross sings tongue-in-cheek about taking a Cybertruck to the “Hard Luck” bar for a bout of online sports betting, musing about the “Tallahassee sunset at the Circle K” in a lo-fi sort of voice that beckons one closer.

The overall effect works pleasingly well, as guest contributions from a who’s who of indie-adjacent friends – like Meg Duffy of Hand Habits and rising indie rock power MJ Lenderman – contribute parts on a plugged-in, robust assortment of guitar-driven tracks carrying on the fuzzy character last heard on 2024’s Dulling the Horns.

Also captured on the record are the singer’s astute, clever and often subtly hilarious observations, from hulking, tattooed Florida fellas to the idea that an air-conditioning unit, for all its utility, actually blocks a stellar window view during the nicest part of the year (as heard on album opener “Box Store”).

There’s an almost zig-zag-like lyrical quality reminiscent of indie rock poet David Berman: A reference steps in one direction, then heads another way entirely. The Berman track “Margaritas at the Mall” comes to mind (one of these things isn’t quite like the other).

The power of observation – of the pratfalls of consumerism and the absurdity of daily life – lends itself to storytelling that’s both warm and just as matter-of-fact across the new record.

“These little things… they kind of do stick with me,” Ross says, noting that he often jots ideas down in his phone as moments happen. “In these songs, these vignettes, they’re based on real things, and I want to find a place for them.”

“Round Of Applause At The End Of The World” was one of the first tracks that came together, Ross notes, bursting to life in rather jaunty fashion even as Ross sings about how “John Kennedy was jokin’ about dying.”

Xandy Chelmis of Wednesday lends gleaming pedal steel, carrying on a hallmark of both Wild Pink shows and studio tracks in recent years: Let no one tell you the art of guitar-driven indie rock has fallen by the wayside.

“Box Store” is Ross at his most observant, shimmering with hazy guitars reminiscent of the heat rising off the blacktop at an outlet mall.

Bolstered by a just-right, thumping drum groove from longtime Wild Pink member Dan Keegan, piano adds a tender flair between weaving guitar parts, while Ross sings about the ‘90s and the crime epic Heat, when “casting directors loved William Fichtner.”

“500 Is The New 250” might prove the spiritual backbone of the LP, with scuzzy guitars and feedback evoking a true “live in the studio” feel. If the first Wild Pink album drew comparisons to the likes of the tender-meets-emo nature of early Death Cab For Cutie – accurate as that might be – then Still Coming Down has an almost Dinosaur Jr.-esque quality at times.

I’ll be lucky
To get my money back
500 is the new 250

Ross notes he’s spent plenty of time lately listening to UK experimental metal maestro Justin Broadrick of Godflesh, who makes “ethereal and pretty-sounding metal.”

Whether Ross will veer that far off the beaten path going forward remains to be seen, but fans of 2024’s Dulling the Horns and its cornerstone, the hard-charging “The Fences of Stonehenge,” will find much to love in the new LP.

Like a Christopher Nolan caper, time seems to move in both linear fashion and then loop around on itself simultaneously when it comes to Wild Pink records, at least in matters of creativity.

The noticeably rocked-out Dulling the Horns, for instance, leaves an impressionable mark on the current LP, Ross notes.

And yet, for the singer and guitarist, both of those records represent a distinct-yet-in-tandem departure from the more lilting, sun-tinged tones of 2021’s A Billion Little Lights and the deep gratitude behind 2022 LP ILYSM, where Ross sang openly about beating cancer.

Ross now places an emphasis on picking and choosing his spots – a more efficient tour route, or less time spent on the road.

A looming economic cloud lingers though, present in gas prices and just about everywhere in between on the road, he says.

“I think it’s hard for everybody, financially, to do this,” Ross says, but that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for an upcoming string of European dates or a forthcoming Bowery Ballroom homecoming show later this year.

“A lot of these songs (off Still Coming Down) were not taken on the road before we recorded them, so they will definitely change over the next six months as we play them,” Ross says.

Perhaps most notably, Ross & co. are set to play the colossal End of the Road Festival in September, a weekend headlined by the likes of Mac DeMarco and Pulp.

Hot out of the vinyl pressing plant though his latest record might be, Ross already has designs on what’s in store next, starting with the live debut of new material that might just appear on the next Wild Pink record.

“Whatever impression I’m left with from the last record, that’s how I’m making decisions on what I do next,” he says.

Almost a decade on from Wild Pink’s debut, it would seem that most of the time, Ross can do no wrong – “Still Coming Down” hangs another proverbial championship banner in the rafters for Wild Pink.

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Stream: “Still Coming Down” – Wild Pink

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Still Coming Down

an album by Wild Pink