NXTOFKIN Where Did We Go Wrong? CD

Nothing special…just your average psychedelic-hardcore punk-power pop-alt-country-shoegaze father-daughter project! Where Did We Go Wrong? is proof that there is a silver lining in every cloud, even a cloud as dark and pervasive as COVID. In the Summer of 2021, Real Gone Music label co-founder Gordon Anderson was hanging out in the backyard of one of the three families comprising his pandemic “pod” when the kids—who’d all known each other since preschool—started banging around on some instruments lying around the garage. Suddenly, from the unmistakable if uncertain strains of Hole’s “Malibu,” came the sounds of somebody playing drums…and playing really well! Turns out it was Anderson’s then 14 year-old daughter Edie, who, though she had taken guitar lessons for a few years, had never held a drumstick in her life. So, the Andersons bought a drum kit off Craigslist, and Edie and Gordon started jamming nightly in their West Hollywood garage. The collaboration deepened, though, when their cousin Will Kast moved to town and opened a recording studio in his apartment. Suddenly, the idea dawned on Gordon and Edie that they could actually make a record and preserve for posterity all the new songs they were developing together. So, when Spring Break rolled around in 2022, the duo got down to work, laying down tracks for 15 songs that veer wildly but seamlessly from driving psychedelia (“A Little Insane”) to hardcore punk (“Energy Star;” “Block Party”) to power pop (“Bad for My Health”) to alt-country (“Last Gasp;” “Paying My Disrespects”) to shoegaze (“House of Mirrors”) and beyond, with a little extra octane (and faster tempos than those found on Gordon’s critically-acclaimed 2020 solo album Moon Man) provided by the teenage drummer. The lyrics, which feature some co-writes between Gordon and Edie, take on everything from environmental degradation to social media obsession…and, of course, COVID (which they both caught while recording Where Did We Go Wrong?). When it was all done, only one thing remained: deciding on a band name. NXTOFKIN seemed to sum it all up. “The Anderson Family Singers” this ain’t…this is high-wire, hard-hitting, stay-up-past-your-bedtime rock and roll.

1. (I’m Still Waiting for) The Punchline
2. Bad for Business
3. A Little Insane
4. Energy Star
5. Couch Surfer
6. Empty Nest
7. Block Party
8. Paying My Disrespects
9. Game Over
10. Bad for My Health
11. Last Gasp
12. Quarankinky
13. Hollywood Squares
14. House of Mirrors
15. Nothing Left to Say