With their seventh studio album, Lost Cause Lover Fool, indie-folk darlings and four-time Grammy-nominated band The Milk Carton Kids have produced one of their most reflective works to date: a tender, poignant, nostalgic album that captures the spirit of how memories can impact the present, how time quickens that process, and how love can heal the void in all of us.
Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale’s set-up has always been simple: two guitars, often with a handkerchief tied around the headstock to dampen the string overtones (and because it looks cool), matched with their majestic voices and some deadpan humour in between songs to get the night going and keep the audience engaged.
Having formed in 2011, they bring 15 years of songwriting experience and evolution to their latest offering. In Lost Cause Lover Fool, produced by Pattengale, they have captured a minimalist sound that blends the softer notes of their harmonies with the delicate finger-picking of acoustic guitars and a slower pace that allows the listener to sit down and ride along with them as they drift back, exploring the essence of memory, time, and how it shapes all of our present lives.
The album begins with the song ‘Blue Water’ and introduces a newer instrument to The Milk Carton Kid’s repertoire, a banjo. The song comes in slow and sunny, almost like shiny light bouncing off a creek. It examines the day-to-day of walking along a riverside and reflecting on certain moments in time. It feels effortless and is such a gentle introduction to a sweepingly beautiful album.
Following ‘Blue Water’ is the tender track, ‘My Place Among The Stones’, sung by Pattengale. It is not only one of the best songs on the album; it is an examination of sadness and what home means to different people. “I have wandered, I have roamed/I have squandered all I’ve owned/I’ve seen sadness taken hold/I’ve forsaken all your love.” The song feels like a snapshot in Pattengale’s life while being universal at the same time. It’s a soft-hearted track and one that explores finding oneself amongst the stones that life often throws your way.
Songs like ‘A Friend Like You’ and ‘I’ll Go Home From Here’ feel like you’re being taken on a slow country drive with Joey and Ryan. ‘A Friend Like You’ is more upbeat in its nature, while ‘I’ll Go Home From Here’ is a more sombre track, one that again explores similar themes of home, time, and what they mean to each of us.
The titular track, and likely the best song on the album, ‘Lost Cause Lover Fool’, is much more than an opus full of layered and dynamic harmonies that remind us how powerful the folk sensibilities of Joey and Ryan are; it also possesses some of the strongest lyrics on the record, showcasing their evolution as songwriters and craftsmen. Ryan sings, “Sometimes I’m tough/Sometimes I am not enough/Sometimes I think of you/Passenger princess singing from the heart/Can you show me who I am?/Are you one of the angels tearing me apart?/I want to understand.”
The line “Are you one of the angels tearing me apart?” is one of the more beautiful lines on the album, capturing a feeling that can’t really be expressed in words. It seems like Ryan is asking a bigger, more existential question here, as he follows up the line with “I want to understand.” The song is the heart of the album, and in keeping with the major themes of the record, it reminds us of the perfect view that love shows us right when we need its vision the most.
Another standout hit from the record, ‘Blinded and Smiling’, has Ryan digging deep, singing, “It’s just that I can’t understand why we can’t live forever/Why happiness passes so easily by, but pain hurts more than ever.” The track examines how suffering seems to last, while the moments of joy pass us by. It explores the permanence of life in a way that feels so effortless for them.
The final track is one of the faster-paced songs on the nine-track album. It is entitled ‘Young Love’ and is a heavily nostalgic song lamenting young love lost from lives past. In it, Ryan asks, “Do you ever think of me, in the silence we held on to and the songs we used to sing?”
It feels like a song exploring a memory and that feeling we have all had, romanticising past relationships and love, while wondering, “Do they still think about that one day, that one song we always sang together, and the way that our love seemed undying?”
To end the album with ‘Young Love’ further showcases the skill and the evolution of the songwriting that the now-seasoned duo has come to perfect. The album as a whole feels nostalgic and is a snapshot of how memories impact time, how time impacts our memories, and how love can transform us. The Milk Carton Kids have done it again with Lost Cause Lover Fool, creating a record that not only is an evolution but also one that feels like a gentle sunrise, incorporating elements of nature and growth while exploring how love shapes our memories and changes our lives over time.