(Indie Rock) Golden Suits - Golden Suits - 2013, MP3, 320 kbps

Golden Suits is the first solo project of Fred Nicolaus from the band Department of Eagles. After co-writing many of the group's best known songs, Nicolaus was inspired to write a solo album after a strange year that saw him get chased out of an apartment by a rat infestation, go through a painful breakup, travel to Germany to learn about his grandfather's death in WWII, go broke, and lose forty pounds. The result is a collection of ten songs that combine nostalgia, sentimentality, skewed references to a book about suburban marriage in the 1950s, personal confessions and abstract non-sequitors that take a shot at the sublime. Musically, the songs follow the thread of Department of Eagles' swervy take on classic pop in the vein of Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Paul Simon, and Lennon and McCartney solo.