Fans of area-based indie rock may know Blackman High School alum Tyler Kline as one-third of Murfreesboro garage-rock experiment Shoelace.Band. For now, Kline has distanced himself from that side of the house with a more intimate and personal project: his full-length, acoustic guitar-driven, indie-bedroom-folk solo debut Sincerely, Your Daughter, DIY-released in September 2023.
It appears as if Kline layered two almost identical recordings on top of one another on the solo work, a nifty technique that results in a warmth in vocal harmony as well as a layer of slower-patterned acoustic strums throughout the album. When he’s a little off, the curious dissonance (between the different recordings) somehow boosts the project’s sentimentality, as opposed to distracting from it. It’s an impressive audio trick, and helps steer the sound away from the initial apprehension that it may sound a bit too much like similarly minded singer-songwriter Elliot Smith on a big body guitar and close up to the mic. Into the sun/ I will rest for you/ I will do my best/ I will rest for you/ It’s the only thing I know how to do, Kline somberly wails right off the bat on the introductory track, “Rest for You.”
“Howling at the Sun” seemingly uses the filler lyric I like your ass softly sung at one point, with the recording later revealing Kline and another (another Kline . . . in another recording layer?) in the room talking out the song structure before they ultimately Simon-and-Garfunkel it up. My thinking is that the take was kept because the artist got the guitar part real pretty as he self-Simon-and-Garfunkeled.
The following tracks are similar, though some more vocally muffled than others; “Baby Bird” features a riffy fingerpicking progression closely related to its seeming inspiration, The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” but wonderfully spun with chords of its own and set against an oscillation effect, making it his own thing. The intention to add a symphonic sound to the track with the oscillation, or possibly a synth, is recognizable and even pleasant when everything reaches a harmonic peak, but the final track, “Center Piece” ultimately comes along and takes the album, including an arresting reverse playback effect on the guitar and an I call you when I drink and tell you I like you lyric. He’s getting it.
Lyrically, Sincerely, Your Daughter sort of just kicks up dirt, but in a deeper, Kurt Cobain sort of way more than an Elliott Smith way—we know Kline has a punk-rock garage band. On his solo record, his punk angst seems held back as he sings through the disciplined process of emo music. Those emo musicians have developed a protocol that keep them from flipping out in a punk rage onstage, and that’s the underlying sentiment noticeable in Sincerely, Your Daughter. It doesn’t hinder Kline’s curiosity and creativity, and it’s not a bad project (it’s really not, keep up the solo work), but don’t quit the band, man.
The debut stands strong as raw and genuine, both musically and lyrically, with dour, minor-chord progressions in an adult-indie-alt rock Dashboard Confessional feel alongside Cobain-esque rasping. And, however possible it may have initially seemed, Kline manages not to cry everywhere, which is all we can really ask for these days.
Find Tyler Kline’s Sincerely, Your Daughter at Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora, Apple Music and tylerklinemusic.bandcamp.com.
