"Like other Midwest rockers before them- The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Guided By Voices all come to mind-Liquid Mike like their runtimes short, their guitars loud, and their hooks easy to sing along to no matter how many beers you've had. The band's first five albums were mostly inspired by Maple's time driving the mail truck around Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and the small-town shenanigans he and his friends got up to off the clock."
"Most of these songs see Maple in head-on collision with the realization that the ennui of his home life won't disappear once he hits the road. "What are you running from?/A middle-aged Houdini/Locked ice box/Works hard to take it easy," Maple sings on "Grand Am," pondering the hours he spent at previous dead-end jobs-now that his dream job has become his day job, was the less predictable path worth it?"
Mike Maple began driving for USPS in 2020 as Liquid Mike was releasing its first albums, and the band has since released a record each year of high-energy garage rock. The 2023 album S/T found an audience on Bandcamp and Twitter with minimal promotion, and 2024's Paul Bunyan's Slingshot brought critical attention and support slots with established punk and indie acts. The band favors short runtimes, loud guitars, and singalong hooks, drawing on Midwest rock influences. Early albums drew on Maple's mail-truck routes and small-town antics; the sixth record, Hell Is an Airport, examines whether leaving home actually dissolves lingering ennui.
Read at Pitchfork
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