The Philadelphia trio’s spectacular debut album sounds familiar in its composition, but completely original in its execution.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now. Sometimes, there is value in taking time to sit with a finished product and pick apart each piece. After the pandemic pushed the planned release date by several months, Another Michael had nearly a full year to spend with their debut album, New Music And Big Pop, between submitting the final master and releasing the first track. “I’m actually more connected to the record now than I would have been, maybe, had we released it sooner,” Michael Doherty tells me over the phone as the rest of his bandmates — bassist Nick Sebastiano and guitarist/keyboardist Alenni Davis — listen intently. As I’m sure is the case with many writers, the last twelve months have made it increasingly difficult for new music to break through the constant noise and find space to nestle in my brain and make itself at home. “New Music,” the opening track of New Music And Big Pop, took a mere 31 seconds capture my full attention when a streaming link popped into my inbox about a year ago. It’s at this point in the song that Doherty’s voice first hits a falsetto note that is impossible to ignore, setting the stage for a spectacular debut effort that sounds familiar in its composition, but completely original in its execution. The track itself an exercise in self-examination, with Doherty’s lyrics detailing, from a bird’s eye view, a beautiful process that many of us undergo daily: musical discovery (something you are hopefully experiencing right now). It’s a simple story, centered around getting a link to new song via text from a trusted friend. But it’s a narrative that often goes untold in songwriting — how often do you hear music about listening to music? As it turns out, the activity of really listening to music and diving into new sounds is an integral part of the glue that holds Another Michael together.
