Good To Be Alive, the Madison-Milwaukee band Old American Junk’s second five-song EP, proffers a chipper take on what might nowadays be described as Americana. But with bouncy melodic hooks that could easily become slowly insinuating earworms, and touches from harmonica and brass embellishing their base acoustic-string instrumentation, these songs could well have been considered a folksy iteration of AM radio-chart pop 40 years ago or so. The jauntiness of the music and the smile through which most of the lyrics are sung belie an emotional gamut running from contentment in nurturing romance to a general anxiety with the human condition. Now if only OAJ would expand upon the tuneful expounding they do so winsomely with, y’know, another whole album.
