"Brian Dunne's terrific new album Clams Casino possesses that same kind of teleportation magic, albeit with less nostalgia and more melancholy. Over 10 songs, the Brooklyn singer-songwriter paints a vivid picture of what it's like to eke out an existence as a 30-something artist in New York today: Joys are hard-won and fleeting, self-doubt rears its head hourly, and the struggle to constantly achieve, or perform achievement on social media, looms like a Scooby-Doo villain's shadow."
"It's a song about class, Dunne explains when asked why he'd write an homage to breadcrumbs, bacon, and bivalves. "It's about where I'm from and where I hope to go, and all the shame and pride that comes with trying to outrun those circumstances," he says. "I grew up in a super working-class family and I wear that as a badge of honor, but also, I've got serious delusions of grandeur and I don't really know how to reconcile those two things.""
Clams Casino comprises just over ten songs that portray the day-to-day reality of a thirtysomething artist trying to make a life in New York. The music balances bouncy melodies with bittersweet lyricism to convey hard-won pleasures, frequent self-doubt, and the pressure to perform success on social media. The title track equates a modest aspiration with a baked seafood dish, framing ambition through class and shame alongside pride. Concrete details like buying a secondhand mattress puncture romanticism and return the narrator to earth, prompting the recurring question: Why is it so hard to have a good thing?
Read at Rolling Stone
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