...Still Sad 2LP (Seafoam Swirl Vinyl)

Keep that frown upside down. Following Sad About the Times, Anthology Recordings' 2019 collection of melancholic music made by maudlin marauders who aspired for '70s AOR radio success but never quite achieved it, arrives …Still Sad. A companion to its double LP predecessor, …Still Sad adds to a general malaise that genuinely feels terribly right.

Compiled again by Mikey Young (Total Control / Eddy Suppression Ring) and Keith Abrahamsson (Founder / Head of A&R at Anthology Recordings), …Still Sad scours the corners of cracked vanity presses and the fault lines of forgotten 45s to assemble another sixteen songs that cut to the heart faster than a maxed-out credit card to a feeble pile of Florida Snow.

…Still Sad features music made in North America, mostly in the '70s, mostly by a bunch of bearded, good-natured men. Scan the track list, and you can almost hear the earth tones, and see the studio scene where these artists with nothing else to lose gathered to give everything they had in hope that these songs would be heard. Even if most of these songs are just now being heard, each one schleps the emotional baggage of four decades past to the present.

Though some songs on …Still Sad veer from themes of loss or lament, there is still enough nostalgia to take any fool who falls for it on a roller coaster ride of regret and remorse. But don't mistake …Still Sad as a torture device for the unsuspecting listener, rather a front-row view of the tortured heart. You'll come out feeling better on the other side of listening to …Still Sad, and the artists included on the compilation (well, at least those who made it to the other side) a fraction of a penny richer.