| Thephoenix |
 In the four years since the previous Pernice Brothers album, Joe Pernice has published a terrific debut novel (It Feels So Good When I Stop), released an accompanying soundtrack, and had his name catapulted into Twitter infamy by his acerbic foil (and manager), Joyce Linehan. (Those Dangerfieldian tête-à-têtes have been collected in a book, Pernice to Me, available to those who pre-ordered the new record online.)
Pernice's sixth studio album under the Brothers moniker is a palate cleanser that's more satisfying than most bands' main courses. Recorded with a smattering of musicians and free of lush pop arrangements, these 10 songs are some of Pernice's most loosey-goosey and stripped-down. "Jacqueline Susann" and "Bechamel" are marked by raw excitement, as if the band had just been shown the changes. Elsewhere, Pernice and company are so relaxed that they echo ramshackle royalty like the Flying Burrito Brothers ("Newport News") and the Faces ("Goodbye, Killer").
This only augments Pernice's self-depreciating and subversively cutting streak — more Elvis Costello than Elvis Costello on "The Loving Kind," and deadpan on "We Love the Stage," in which he asserts, like any good tongue-in-cheek pragmatist, "We sing to six the way we sing to 10."...full text |
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| Avclub |
| In the four years since the release of Pernice Brothers’ last studio album, Live A Little, bandleader Joe Pernice has written a novel and recorded an album of cover songs as a “soundtrack” to that novel. He also recorded another Pernice Brothers album, in pieces, around the other work. That may explain why Goodbye, Killer sounds more scattered than the previous Pernice Brothers albums; where before, Pernice strove for a unified mood, Goodbye, Killer lurches from the band’s usual lush pop to songs that sound more like British Invasion as filtered through The Smithereens, as well as songs that call back to Pernice’s alt-country roots, but with a twist of cabaret. The eclecticism is jarring—especially on an album that’s only 32 minutes long—but the songs are frequently superb, in particular the literate rocker “Jacqueline Susann,” the gleefully kitschy two-stepper “We Love The Stage,” the delicate folk-rock ballad “The End Of Faith,” and the stately, declarative “The Loving Kind,” which sounds like it was co-written with the ghosts of Roy Orbison and George Harrison. And with the soft, Glen Campbell-like “Newport News,” Pernice charts a possibly fruitful new path for future records, threading the disparate strands of past influences into something sturdy. That is, if he doesn’t get sidetracked....full text |
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| Allmusic |
| Four years separated the Pernice Brothers' Goodbye, Killer and their previous album, Live a Little, the longest gap between LPs since Joe Pernice formed the band in 1998, and anyone who was expecting some sort of epochal creation to emerge after this layoff is in for a surprise -- Goodbye, Killer runs just a shade over 32 minutes, and most of its ten songs zip along with a pace that suggests this set was not intended to generate the emotional gravity that usually comes as second nature to Pernice. (For the record, Pernice wasn't just goofing off during that four-year gap -- he published a novel and released a solo album of songs referenced in the book.) Goodbye, Killer also finds Joe Pernice working without his usual guitarist Peyton Pinkerton, whose tasteful but expressive leads were the cornerstone of the group's sound, so it's no great surprise that Pernice reaches for different musical approaches on several of these tracks. The first two numbers, "Bechamel" and "Jacqueline Susann," recall '70s glam rock in their straightforward, guitar-based punch, and the swagger of Pernice's vocals (a big step away from the dour whisper that's his trademark as a singer), "Newport News" resembles the easy but resonant twang of vintage country rock, and "We Love the Stage" is a bitterly witty tale of life on the road that sounds almost jaunty in its piano-based arrangement and lines like "it doesn't matter if the crowd is thin/we sing to six the way we sing to ten." The rest of the album travels a more familiar stylistic path, but with Pernice's brother Bob Pernice back in the fold, the guitars sound crisper and more aggressive, and if pop and vintage soft rock are still obvious stylistic touchstones, Goodbye, Killer has a bite that separates it from the Pernice Brothers' previous releases. This music sometimes feels spontaneous and casual, but the craft of Joe Pernice's songwriting remains as literate and melodically absorbing as anyone working in indie pop today, and Goodbye, Killer confirms he and his collaborators haven't lost their touch, and have even gained a bit or edgy nerve along the way....full text |
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