Oakland band Blues Lawyer joins Dark Entries for their third full-length, All in Good Time, a record of pop-rock songs about living in a world that wants to put your existence on the clock. Today, the band shares the puppet-filled video for the new single, “Nowhere To Go.”

“Alex and I have always been inspired by puppeteers like Jim Henson and Sid Krofft,” says Elyse Schrock, the video director, and band’s drummer. “We both felt puppets would be a perfect way to play off some of the song’s lyrical themes like losing control. That led us to begin work on creating a “day in the life” of a puppet. I had made a few puppets in lockdown and I wanted to continue learning so I grabbed some old socks from my mom and voila!”

“This is a song about the sort of millennial malaise I’ve experienced as a result of being on social media,” says the band’s Rob Miller. “There were days during lockdown where I was either depressed because I was doom scrolling or doom scrolling because I was depressed. Then I’d post something dumb to get attention (lol). It was as if I was disassociating online from myself irl. The bummer sentiment of the words contrasted by the poppy upbeat sound of the band is what makes “Nowhere to Go” a Blues Lawyer song to me.”

Blues Lawyer was formed in 2017 as an outlet for guitarist/vocalist Rob I. Miller and drummer Elyse Schrock to write pop songs outside of the strictures of their other groups. Following 2018’s Guess Work and 2019’s Something Different, Blues Lawyer had “graduated from being a side project band, a sort of throwaway project, to actually being a legitimate band,” according to Miller.

Under the backdrop of global pandemic and existential crisis, they set about recording their new record. Says Miller, “I have always been really attracted to the way we measure time, especially in relationship to our concepts of what we are supposed to have achieved. There’s a lot of different moments on the record where we’re interrogating this whole value system that comes along with it—determining my worth because of where I’m at in my life in relation to my age, in my love life, in my career.”

All in Good Time finds Blues Lawyer moving away from the Flying Nun-influenced jangle pop of their earlier work towards a ’90s alternative rock sound imbued with melancholy of the Lemonheads and Teenage Fanclub. Miller and Schrock agree that this is their first record approached with intentionality, each member having spent their time in pandemic-enforced isolation, honing their songcraft and penning sharp hooks.

With the addition of bassist Alejandra Alcala and guitarist Ellen Matthews, Blues Lawyer has become more unabashedly riff-centric, bringing a controlled wildness to the new songs, as evidenced by Matthews’ single-take guitar solo on album closer “Tangled Mess.” This is also the first record on which Schrock and Miller share songwriting duties, with Schrock’s earnest contributions balancing out Miller’s more sardonic approach. Schrock’s optimism particularly shines on the Heavenly-esque “Late Bloomer” as she sings “A late bloom is worth the wait.”.

All in Good Time reveals Blues Lawyer as a band ready to stake a meaningful claim in a world that rewards insincerity. The vinyl record includes an insert with liner notes and lyrics.

Catch them live:

1/20 San Francisco, CA – Bottom Of The Hill
1/21 San Francisco, CA – Live On Air w/ KALX @ 9PM pst
3/18 Oakland, CA – Stork Club

Photo courtesy of Blues Lawyer