Sundowner “Four One Five Two” LP – In 2007, Chris McCaughan finally got around to doing his own record away from The Lawrence Arms, getting together a backing band and putting down an album full of tracks he had been performing in solo shows, along with reworkings of a couple of Lawrence Arms hits like “100 Resolutions.” The result was a project he called Sundowner and an album titled “Four One Five Two.” And the result was stellar, showing fans in the Red Scare debut what most Chicago music fans already knew, that McCaughan is a fantastic songwriter whose tunes totally lend themselves to the scaled back approach.
But it took more than four years for the album to find its way to vinyl, and the results are ultimately underwhelming. The sound and press quality are just fine, and do justice to the moody, near-acoustic album. But it comes only in the standard black variety, and the artwork (which was rather shitty to begin with) remains so, only much larger. There’s a simple insert for lyrics and credits as well. And though many of the die hards waiting to see this on vinyl already own the material in another format, there is no download code with the purchase.
Ultimately, there is still a fantastic album in “Four One Five Two” at the center of this Sundowner vinyl re-release, but after waiting more than four years, the basic release from Red Scare just isn’t enough. Some color variants, additional material or more spectacular insert – anything, please – is needed to make the purchase worthwhile for those who already bought the album, and it’s just not there. “Four One Five Two” holds up as a fantastic album, leaps and bounds above his follow up, but for those who bought it four years earlier, there’s not reason to drop any more on this release.
Review by: Bill Jones
Sound/Press Quality: 4/5
The Album: 5/5
Artwork and Packaging: 2/5
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