{"id":12510,"date":"2023-08-01T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/?p=12510"},"modified":"2026-05-22T12:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:48:17","slug":"album-review-amos-the-kid-enough-as-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2023\/08\/01\/album-review-amos-the-kid-enough-as-it-was\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review :: Amos the Kid :: Enough as it was"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

*Because I care for Amos Nadlersmith, the front man of Amos the Kid, and we\u2019ve fussed around with songs over the years, two of which ended up on this album (I don\u2019t write about those here for obvious reasons), don\u2019t read this as a review proper, but as an appreciation of Amos\u2019s songwriting and an interpretation of his work from my subjective position.\u00a0<\/em>*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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by Noah Cain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amos the Kid\u2019s debut album, Enough as it Was<\/em>, opens with the world on fire. Smoke hangs in the sky like clouds. In the choking heat, The Kid\u2014the moniker I have for the album\u2019s hero\u2014feels drawn away from the city, to return home and reckon with what\u2019s transpired, to square what he was taught about the world with his experiences in the world, to digest it all before riding out into a future all his own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Unified by the production of Adam Fuhr at House of Wonders, Amos the Kid, which also includes Fuhr (guitar), Brian Gluck (drums), Jensen Fridfinnson (keys\/vocals), and Jordan Cayer (bass) achieves a massive sound on this album. They blew the roof off a sold-out West End Cultural Centre on May 6, alongside special guests Boy Golden, Taylor Janzen, and Tired Cossack, in what was one of the most energized, intimate, cathartic concerts I\u2019ve experienced. They leave on a Western Canada tour near the end of May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadlersmith\u2019s great accomplishment as a songwriter is to create from the place where language emerges. He distills the longing, love, anger, and pain that fuel this album into a wordless, cathartic bridge of the opening song \u201cWorld Burn.\u201d In this song, and across the album, he connects with listeners with an experiential grammar outside of the confines of \u2018proper\u2019 English usage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central image of \u201cHang Your Head\u201d is The Kid with his head slumped in his chest, having given up on ever getting his point across successfully. Where before there was ease and excitement at the thought of an audience, now there is frustration and despair. He\u2019s frustrated with the gathering, but he\u2019s also frustrated with himself. While The Kid desperately wants to be seen and understood, there may be no thought more terrifying. Thankfully, The Kid is not left alone in this moment. Another voice enters to provide comfort and lift him from despair: \u201cCool it man you\u2019ll be fine, everyone grows up in his own time.\u201d There is no easy solution to the difficult, but there is hope in the support of those who care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cWell Water,\u201d my favourite song on the album, The Kid has made it home. Here, the images become even more intensely elemental and concrete. Sensory snapshots hold decades of history and emotion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRed rust it bled from the faucet seal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the birdhouse view from the windowsill<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still remember that metallic taste<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the old pipes at my parents\u2019 place\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This image is emblematic of how memory functions across the album. As rust eats metal, causing seals to leak, the past bleeds into the present. Rusty water finds a way out. Memories surface. A sip of water can transport you back to childhood. After finding a sort of acceptance in \u201cWell Water,\u201d the raging song that follows, \u201cEnough as it Was,\u201d which I discuss in a previous review,<\/a> gives The Kid the catharsis he needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biblical imagery and characters blend in and out of The Kid\u2019s journey. He takes on the destructive implications of contemporary constructions of heaven and hell in \u201cWorld Burn\u201d and \u201cPoint of Beauty.\u201d Despite what he\u2019s been taught to know, The Kid strives to live free from damnation\u2019s trembling anxiety and salvation\u2019s neutered anticipation, accepting the reality of death and finding beauty in his place in the family of things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day I\u2019ll die. The plants will grow  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

all through my hands, between my ribs, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

around my face and then my bones <\/p>\n\n\n\n

will fade away from where I came. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dust is where I\u2019m gonna go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album\u2019s closing song, \u201cWestern Store,\u201d finds The Kid heading west. The tensions between rural and urban and the questions of authenticity that resound throughout the album come to a head in the concluding image of The Kid, hands softened by the city, wearing boots bought for him by his beloved\u2019s mother, declaring he is worthy of love: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I went to the Western Store<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            With your ma\u2019s money I bought boots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Now I look the part, I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t own no horse, I don\u2019t own no land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hands are soft as silk,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I can be your man<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final line repeats as the song and album move towards finality. The \u201cYour man\u201d is cut off from the last repetition, the album ending with The Kid, having reckoned and reminisced and wrestled, triumphantly declaring: \u201cI can be!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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