AJR - Neotheater

1xLP on Ghostly Blue Vinyl The third album from AJR, 2019's thoughtfully buoyant Neotheater, finds the trio of multi-instrumentalist siblings Adam, Jack, and Ryan Met coloring their effusive pop with themes of twenty-something angst and grappling to find one's place in what can feel like a scary world. The album nicely evokes Fun.'s Some Nights; it feels similarly driven by the ennui of millennial helicopter kids caught between the security of living at home and the terrifying promise of life on their own -- or at least in a dorm room. It's also quite musically accomplished, with nods to musical theater, classical, dance-pop, hip-hop, and indie folk. It doesn't hurt either that AJR balance their earnest inclinations with a wry sense of irony and clever skepticism. On "Birthday Party" they imagine the thoughts of a newborn baby who naively assumes a series of truths singing, "I bet it's always gonna stay this fun/I bet it's easy staying 'way from drugs/I bet our parents always stay in l