“In the past four years, I’ve had four one-year long relationships,” explains Kasher via telephone while stuck in a traffic jam. “I think that’s common at this age (Kasher’s 30), just trying to stop fucking around.”

Album of the Year’s rehashing of past-love’s lost depicts both the optimism and, often, disappointment found in late 20s relationships. “I guess I was always trying to save relationships, trying to work it out,” offers Kasher. “It seems doomed from the start, but you try to hold it together and make it work.” Although lovelorn stories don’t exactly constitute the most original inspiration for an album, Kasher’s writing on Album of the Year provides a deeper analysis of his frustration with falling in love too much, which keeps the story line moving. “The stories are about as age-old as can be, but I don’t mind that though because everyone has had to deal with these problems,” admits Kasher. “It’s simple, but it works.”

And indeed it does work—largely because, aside from the lyrical content, Album of the Year is much brighter and poppier than anything Kasher’s done before. Filled with acoustic guitars and warm telecasters, Album’s sound is clean and inviting, far folkier than the Good Life’s previous new-wave tinged records that garnered constant comparisons to the Cure. Defined by classy sophistication, with string accompaniments, horn fills, quiet piano parts and pedal steel guitar coloring around the edges of Kasher’s wounded howl, the record feels more like Elvis Costello’s King of America than something from the Saddle-Creek record label stable. The influence of producer Mike Mogis is felt all over the record as he aids Kasher in dressing up his tunes with some of the same baroque folk stylings that worked to such great effect on Bright Eyes’ 2002 breakthrough album, Lifted ...

This influence is also noticeable in the change of percussion. The Good Life’s sophomore record, the eclectic Blackout, was set primarily to manufactured beats with only occasional organic drum parts, but now, the percussion section is occupied by tambourines, shakers, and at times even bongos. “I still like working with beats in live shows, but in all the songs on Album, I didn’t see a place for them,” claims Kasher. “I didn’t want to put them in, just to put them in. Everything was so laid back, it seemed more natural with acoustic drums.”

The change in percussion partly signifies the overall change in approach that separated the busy and anxious sound of Blackout from Album’s laid-back, back-beat feel. This focused and calm energy also serves as a catalyst for the pop-rock overtones that transform each song into a catchy tune with Morrissey-esque crooning, but often dreadfully depressing lyrics, (“We started laughing until it didn’t hurt”).

Album of the Year is a record fixated on figuring out the difference between knowing what you want and knowing what you need. In the past, Kasher’s songs have all been linked by theme and purpose. With Good Life album No. 3, rather than stringing together a bunch of songs bound together by time and place Kasher tells a story that moves and breathes, one open to various interpretations but with one underlying message, “We don’t know what we want, but we know we’re needy.”

The central emotions driving Kasher’s treacherous love stories are desperation and frustration—a private dread that Kasher airs publicly throughout Album’s dozen woe-filled tracks. The whole affair is strikingly different from the avant-metal of his other higher-profile group Cursive. “I’ve always wanted to write in as many different styles as I could,” explains Kasher of why he prefers fronting two strikingly different bands. “The downfall of many writers is that they only have one style. If people are done with that style, they’re done with that writer. I wanted to branch out into two bands with two different approaches to music.”

Just because Cursive has been far more successful commercially than the Good Life doesn’t mean Kasher views Cursive as his main band: “I want to be seen as a writer independently. Whatever I’m writing for is whatever I’m writing for.” Rather than writing songs and choosing their destination band after the fact, Kasher writes entire records in one sitting, thus maintaining a strong sense of continuity within the final product. The only difference between playing with Cursive and the Good Life are the people who are involved. “It’s just a different arrangement of people and as a result the shows are more laid back,” explains Kasher. “We have a tendency to fuck around more. With Cursive, we’ve been playing for so long that it’s more business, more professional.”

“I have this repetitious cycle of starting up doomed relationships,” explains Kasher as our interview winds down. “I wrote this at the point in my life when I was trying to piece them together.” Piecing these relationships together through Album’s story takes Kasher’s one-dimensional characters and moves them into a broader light. In doing so, Kasher provides himself the opportunity to examine past love affairs without giving away exactly how he feels about them, forcing examination of the actions of the actors and actresses in his story, rather than his own. Rarely has a guy sorting through the wasteland of his love-life created art so captivating—it’s almost hard not to wish the man further heartache.||

The Good Life plays on Sun., Oct. 24, at the Triple Rock Social Club with Neva Dinova the ’89 Cubs and Look Down. 5 p.m. All Ages. $8 adv/ $10 door. 629 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-333-7399.

Find out more about The Good Life on their record label’s official website.

Download an mp3 of The Good Life’s song A New Friend.