Jack Van Cleaf JVC 2LP

Jack Van Cleaf was still an independent artist when "Rattlesnake" became a viral hit in 2023, earning praise from songwriters like Noah Kahan (who hand-picked Jack as the opening act on his sold-out Stick Season Tour) and Zach Bryan (who began covering the song online). For Jack, it felt like a pivotal moment in a career that had been building since his teenage years.

"This album is all about the vertigo of growing up," says Jack, who makes his Dualtone Records debut with the sophomore release JVC. "It's about re-defining and re-understanding yourself."

JVC does more than plant its flag halfway between the worlds of indie rock and Gen Z folk. It also asks big questions about home and identity. Years after penning his first song as a high school freshman in San Diego, he headed east to Nashville, where he studied songwriting at Belmont University and released his debut album, Fruit from the Trees, after graduation. "Rattlesnake," with its introspective lyrics and atmospheric acoustics, earned him a spot on Spotify's 2024 Best New Artist list with tastemaker playlist "juniper."

To record JVC, Jack and producer Alberto Sewald (Katy Kirby, Sierra Hull) headed to far-flung locations like Joshua Tree and the Texas/Mexico border. Those choices were deliberate, their landscapes reflecting the barrenness evoked by many of the album's lyrics. Jack recorded his songs in a series of live takes, showcasing the artistry he'd developed as a road warrior opening for headliners like Noah Kahan, Shakey Graves, and Madi Diaz. Fellow artists like Heaven Schmitt (aka Grumpy), Charli Adams, and Annika Bennett added vocal harmonies to the songs, and Jack recorded two duets, as well. He teamed up with Gatlin for "Teenage Vampire" — a seize-the-day anthem about vices and indulgent behavior — and flew to Manhattan to record an updated version of "Rattlesnake" alongside Grammy-winning chart topper Zach Bryan.

The revamped "Rattlesnake" joins a track list that includes everything from "Green" — a climate-conscious song whose pop hooks heighten the song's activist bite — to "Piñata," an extended metaphor dressed in hazy soundscapes and lazy, loping grooves, that was inspired by, in Van Cleaf's words, "a moment of reckoning with a pathetic addiction to candy flavored vapes." There's a feeling of uplift to tracks like "Off to the Races," "Using You," and "Go Home, Danny" — songs that seem to split the difference between sincerity and tongue-in-cheek sarcasm — but most of JVC deals with the emotional gravity of young adulthood. Appropriately, the album closer "Life," is filled with lurching groove and gritty guitar, nodding to grunge and '90s alternative music while balancing the disarmingly candid nature of Jack's lyrics.