Billy Tibbals | Nightlife Stories | Silver Arrow | April 2024
With his big, blown-out hair and stars-and-stripes pants, Billy Tibbals looks like he’s ripped from the pages of an early issue of BAM Magazine or the Disney XD version of Marc Bolan. And it is so easy to be cynical about this level of commitment to full-package retro rock ‘n’ roll from a young man who popped out in the 21st century, but it’s worth remembering that, like sexuality, revivalism is also a spectrum. On one end – we’ll call it the Bad End – we have Greta Van Fleet’s synthetic patchouli-stinking Led Zeppelin pastiche and Måneskin’s hilarious Eurovision Buckcherry boomercore rockism. Throw Jet on there, too, if you’ve got some extra years on you. You’ll find The Last Dinner Party, Sheer Mag, Wolfmother, and The Darkness somewhere in the middle. And on the Good End, we have the real students of the game: The Lemon Twigs, The Rubs, Uni Boys, etc. It brings me great joy to say that Tibbals’ second EP, Nightlife Stories, firmly slots him on the Good End and makes a strong case for the young man as the next crown prince of glam rock.
Though his appearance recalls that of the T. Rex frontman, Tibbals’ approach to songwriting and performance aligns more closely with Sparks, Milk’ n’ Cookies, and especially Danny Wilde’s early band, The Quick. Where Bolan was a sly eccentric whose most flamboyant material (“Metal Guru”) still kept things tight, Tibbals is pure energy that spills forth with an occasionally clumsy, often brilliant, and nearly always endearing youthful exuberance. The best news is that it’s all uphill from the opener and lead single “Burn Out!” It’s a frustrating track because it falls short of what it promises. The stomping drums and cymbal crashes that precede the first verse telegraph a muscular swagger that carries through the song’s pre-chorus, but once Tibbals locks into his flattened falsetto, it’s like all of the melody’s joints lock up before it takes a stiff and awkward tumble down the stairs. The chorus is too unorthodox for its own good and doesn’t feature the propulsion or vocal dynamism he regularly displays elsewhere on Nightlife Stories. Tibbals builds his best songs (everything else) upon simple, immediate ideas that make space for his performative flourishes. “Burn Out!” is, unfortunately, the inverse.
Luckily, the three songs that follow whip ass. “The World Revolves” embraces hedonism as a response to nihilism, with massive, crunchy chords, handclaps, and smatterings of punchy keys crafting a lively atmosphere that argues for “dance and drink and play” in the face of a rock that keeps on spinning the same way no matter what any of us do. Tibbals sounds so much more confident in his vocal chops here, flitting rapidly between affectations and intonations like a brattier Russell Mael.
While the operatic backing vocals in the outro are ripped straight from the Sparks playbook, Tibbals pushes this comparison even further on “Out of Touch” and “Nobody Knows.” The former is probably the best song the young man has penned to date: he confronts the alienation that results from being obsessed with the old as a young person. It’s an extra punked-up new wave joint: Tibbals supplements the big riffs with squeaky vintage synths and Tibbals’ snarled rolling Rs. There are so many fantastic moments in this one: the chorus, on paper, isn’t too far removed from what he attempts on “Burn Out!” It’s stuttered out, but this time, it’s a consistent, progressive build that lifts the track’s energy instead of stifling it. There’s also a brief section where he pairs a siren sample with a zigzagging, ascending key guitar riff. It’s not a wildly complex trick – it was a go-to for Steve Hufsteter and later Cheap Time’s Jeffrey Novak – but it’s underutilized and effective. “Nobody Knows,” meanwhile, features the EP’s most exciting rhythm shifts and a sick-as-hell harmonized guitar solo.
“I’ll Die” is another strong rocker that only falls slightly short of the three previous tracks due to its length and comparative simplicity: it’s closer to the ramshackle charm of The Exploding Hearts’ Guitar Romantic than the mad genius that precedes it. Closer “Dream Away” – a slow but appropriately spacey and theatrical piano ballad with plenty of swelling strings – is a departure for Tibbals, but he nails it. Billy Tibbals might not be reinventing the wheel with Nightlife Stories, but nobody is mining ‘70s glam with more love, authenticity, and skill right now.
Note: This review was originally published in Rantipole.
Travis Shosa is a writer from Spring, TX. They are the EIC and managing editor of Dodo Eraser. Their creative writing is featured in Stanchion, Maudlin House, HAD, Bending Genres, The Bulb Region, HAWKEYE, Some Words and lots of other cool places. They have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Their journalism has been featured in Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, The Line of Best Fit, PAPER, and others.
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