I can’t listen to the Footballhead mini album Before I Die (Tiny Engines), which came out in August, without thinking of an interview I did with front man Ryan Nolen last September: we talked on the phone for nearly an hour because I was writing about the death of one of his best friends, Space Gators front man Ryan Deffet. Melancholy gives Before I Die much of its power: it makes the truck-size riffs feel immune to gravity, and it lends a calming, reflective warmth to Nolen’s bittersweet lilt. His lyrics grapple with the unknown while the band’s heavy, polished alt-rock hits with declarative force, a winning combination that would bring some refreshing energy to corporate FM stations if iHeartRadio cared about music as much as it cares about quarterly earnings. I’ve spun “Your Ghost” dozens of times since Footballhead released it as a single in May, and when Nolen’s forlorn vocals emerge from the cascading guitars of the verse and burst into a roaring chorus that feels like a plunge down Niagara Falls, I still get teary-eyed.
Footballhead You Blew It! headline; Footballhead open. Tue 9/24, 7 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North. $25, $22 in advance, all ages
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Leor Galil started writing for the Reader in 2010. He joined the staff in 2012, and became a senior staff writer in 2020. Leor mainly covers music, with a singular focus on Chicago artists, scenes, and phenomena. He’s won a handful of journalism awards; he’s won two first place awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (for music writing in 2020 and arts feature in 2022) and a Peter Lisagor award (for Best Arts Reporting and Criticism in 2022). Twitter: @imLeor. He can be reached at lgalil@chicagoreader.com.
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