Vanity Plates is an indie rock band from Milwaukee, WI.
Initially a solo songwriting project for guitarist Alex Shah, the band was officially edtablished when Shah recruited drummer Shane Timm and former bassist Ian Worcester to record the songs that made up their 2018 album You Want to Move.
In the wake of a few lineup changes, a shelved 2020 album, and a pandemic-induced hiatus, Vanity Plates returned to Silver City Studios in 2023 to record Good Grief, their first new album in six years.
Good Grief expands on the confessional nature of their debut album and showcases a more refined sound thanks in large part to the addition of Pete Ciolino on bass and close collaboration with Silver City’s Josh Evert. Surf and doo-wop riffs, textured, melodic solos, and perfectly-placed jam breaks bring you back into your body just when Shah’s painfully relatable lyrics start getting to your head. These moving parts create a rich and nuanced sonic landscape so that the sad lines don’t need to be taken neat and the clever lines get their well-deserved exclamation points.
This collection of songs sits comfortably within itself as a cohesive, honest body of alt pop that reminds the listener that they are not alone in their experiences. Good Grief serves as an invitation, an acknowledgment that we all have the same things to say as its songwriter, even if we don’t do it as poetically or with such a nice Wisconsin accent or with our friends counting us in.
Good Grief is out now on Editoris.
Shepherd Express Review of You Want to Move
