If you’ve called a previous album Heavy Meta, you really have nothing left to prove. But American singer/songwriter/guitarist/cool kid Ron Gallo simply transcends himself on his new full-length Foreground Music, also a telling title. This is a strong and urgent record for so many reasons: it’s versatile and complete, it’s raw and rocking, with lyrics that are full of humorous observations and big life questions, disturbing and relatable but also personal and sensitive, totally in line with our life in 2023. From the title track: “I take my life pills one day at a time // My favorite thing to do is lie awake and panic // Is it supposed to feel like this? // Is it me or is it all of it? // I’m a forward person in a backwards world // This is foreground music, you don’t need a background.”
Foreground Music is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP through Kill Rock Stars.
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Update: As a companion piece to this album, Ron Gallo makes his literary debut with the Social Meteor book: “A 106-page collection of journal entries, rants, essays, local reviews, interactive sections, graphics and lyrics and words behind the songs.”