REX TYCOON, NO LIMIT 2 LUV

Rex Tycoon have been circling around for a few years, first surfacing with the 2020 EP Partial Frames after long nights of jamming and self recording in a Pittsburgh basement. Now vocalist Austin Reesman, guitarist Joey Tiberio, bassist Keith Tucker, and drummer Jared Stalker have released No Limit 2 Luv, their first full-length and what they call their “official opening statement to the world.”

The record was cut in Bloomington, Indiana at Russian Recording, a space that’s housed some of the band’s favorite albums. In their words, love is the thread running through everything here, its mystique, its beauty, its pain, and the ways it still binds people together in a world that feels cruel and overwhelming. Musically, the band’s sound draws from a lineage that is gritty, melodic, and rooted in everyday observations, drawing on the approaches of Lou Reed, Silver Jews, Hüsker Dü, Paul Westerberg, and John Prine without direct imitation.

This may be the shortest album of the year, with ten songs clocking in at 25 minutes, but Rex Tycoon makes the most of every minute.