When you encounter the likes of “Ride That Money Train,” one of the more formidable excerpts from Jonathan Brenner’s Instagram Success, the first thing you’re going to hear is a powerful melodicism that only gets more potent as we drift further down the line with the arrangement.
This opening salvo of play is searing and propellant of a textural melody that will be hard to get out of your head after indulging in its charisma for the very first time, but such is the case with almost every song on this second album from Jonathan Brenner. There was a lot of talk about his 2018 debut, but judging from the caliber of the creative drive we find on the other end of the microphone in pretty much every instance featured in the tracklist, I think this LP is going to get a bit more attention than its predecessor did.
There are a lot of different influences in play on Instagram Success, but the most prominent of the bunch is probably introspective indie folk/rock, a strain of the genre that had been coming into the spotlight with increased momentum as the pandemic came to an end just a couple of years ago. Songs like “Not Gettin’ Drunk, Not Gettin’ High” and “Jesus Loves the Poor” allow for Brenner to stretch his legs behind an acoustic six-string without eliminating the space he needs to lay down a sensational vocal track, and in the status-makers “Key to My Heart” and “It’s a Dyin’ Art,” he spends as much of his time conjuring up a wickedly addictive harmony as he does illustrating a poetic narrative. That’s not the easiest combination to pull off convincingly, but you wouldn’t know that just from sitting down with these songs.
It would be silly to suggest that Instagram Success isn’t a guitar-powered record because, in all actuality, numbers like “Hangin’ on the Edge over You,” “Silly Little Habit,” “Little Lost Lamb in Dixieland” and even “It’s a Dyin’ Art” just wouldn’t make sense were they not outfitted with the acoustic backbone that they were beneath all of the other elements contained in the master mix. This is a singer/songwriter who wants to convey emotion to his audience through much more than a virtuosic strand of lyrics alone, and with this all-new album, I think he was trying to explore the depth of his capabilities as much as he could without spreading himself too thin in the grander scheme of things. It’s worthy of some hype, if not the focus of a mainstream mostly devoid of any competitive indie releases this month.
Listeners of discerning taste who enjoyed Jonathan Brenner’s first outing in Playin’ Hooky with My Baby need to set aside some time to spend with his latest release in Instagram Success, and even if you’re new to his sound, I would recommend these ten tracks in getting to know this performer and his style of artistry in general. He’s got a great concept for this latest work and the way he approaches his craft, and I’m very interested in seeing where he takes things from here.
Kim Muncie