Today by Disaster Artist

The playful, energetic, yet deeply contemplative Americana sound of Disaster Artist shines through on their new record Today, telling a coming-of-age story with a unique perspective. More accurately, Today tells a came-of-age story, a reflection on the abrupt snap from adolescence to early adulthood, a story familiar especially to those who experienced that transition around the time of the Covid pandemic. Starting on themes of the absurd beauty of life and the essential nature of the artist as a social outsider, these detached, almost fantasy lyrics crystallize into more pointed laments at the uncomfortable stage of life found after a key inflection point. Here, the band’s sound picks up a darker aesthetic, with influence from Midwest emo and other forms of melancholic indie to diversify and intensify the band’s riffing. In the end, however, the band synthesizes both of these aesthetic proclivities to unleash a series of closing songs that directly, and sometimes even by name, celebrate the artist’s close friends, holding up their community of choice as a model mechanism for coping with this tumultuous life moment.