Petty Crimes connect the dots between us all in their immersive and engaging sophomore album Every Moment All At Once — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The North Carolina quartet refer their sonic approach as “genre fluid” — and this distinctive, dynamic and diverse disc seems to embody that statement. From a base of blues, pop and rock, main songwriters Dan Irving and Em Edgerton have explored almost every format of indie music one can think of since the band’s inception. Burning through everything from twee indie-folk to dream pop-esque electronica to all manner of ’90s alt-rock, the nine-song LP deliberately pulls at the strings between styles to make a larger point.
“Every Moment All At Once is about the threads of connection people have with each other, and how all of these threads come together to form the sum of one’s identity,” they say. “We wanted to explore how, through the relationships in our lives, we discover different facets of ourselves; some that we love, and some that are hard to grapple with that we wish to change.”
Those musical threads also wind their way through the diverse album. Moving from the Warren Zevon-style indie-pop of Plans to the more stylized, Polyphonic Spree-meets-grunge style of New Years or Knowing Silence — before the electronic, Switched on Bach-like interlude of If You Are There takes the album on a decidedly different path — this album finds plenty of common group (both musically and emotively) before it comes to an end.
Whilst Irving and Edgerton began writing and conceptualizing the album around the time the Raleigh band formed in 2017, the pandemic and lockdown allowed them to focus and refine their efforts. What results is a rich stylistic fusion not unlike their debut album You Have Your Mind, but far deeper and richer. Intrinsically entertaining and fun on top of being deep, evocative and high-concept, Every Moment All At Once has a little something for every musical taste, and that might be its biggest accomplishment: Connecting music fans with different tastes with each other.
Listen to Every Moment All At Once below, watch the video for Still Waiting above, and commit to Petty Crimes on on their website, Facebook and Instagram.
