Home Read Albums Of The Week: Ron Gallo | Foreground Music

Albums Of The Week: Ron Gallo | Foreground Music

Life is getting crazier and weirder by the day — so it only makes sense that eccentric singer-songwriter Gallo would follow suit with a batch of sharply barbed indie-rock.

THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With the new collection, Ron Gallo screams at the developers turning neighborhoods into unremarkable AirBnB advertisements, corporate overlords deciding how much music costs, and extremists hellbent on bringing forth an apocalypse of racial and civil destruction.

Foreground Music confronts the villains of our society and helps those crushed by them by finding a way to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Over the course of 11 songs, Gallo displays what Ann Powers once called “literate electricity.” It moves from fuzz to lounge jazz to freaky pop to post-punk and back again to rollicking, truly FUN rock music, all the while taking aim at any and everything— including (but not limited to) male entitlement, the age of anxiety, apathy vs. action, gentrification, narcissism, retail therapy, xenophobia, the dread of future generations, right wing extremists, capitalism, climate change and the experience of having a loved-one who is an addict.

Despite the chaos, Gallo infuses the album with a joyful charm, one that comes from a sincere place of love for people and protecting the things we hold sacred. Love between Gallo and his listeners, between Gallo and the strum of a guitar, between Gallo and the world. By the end of Foreground Music, Ron Gallo makes a staggering and life-affirming conclusion: “The world is completely fucked, but the universe is inside you.”

Gallo has earned a fervent and loyal live following, sharing the stage with the likes of Spoon, Parquet Courts, Ty Segall, Hurray For the Riff Raff, Twin Peaks, The Black Angels, Thee Oh Sees, Caroline Rose, Wilco, J. Mascis, Courtney Barnett and Post Animal. He has also made festival appearances at Coachella, Bonnaroo, Governor’s Ball, Austin City Limits, Pukkelpop, Osheaga, Shakey Knees, Best Kept Secret, Levitation, Forecastle and Hangout.”