Written by: Alex Green

The brainchild of former Autoliner drummer Tom Curless, Your Gracious Host has been steadily establishing itself as one of the most exciting power pop bands around.

The Michigan outfit’s new long player The Writers Of Our Destiny is a perfectly crafted concept album whose narrative centers around a bar-dwelling protagonist who’s both stuck in the past and worried about the future. “I live in a world within a world” he proclaims midway through the accompanying 14-page short story. Those two worlds find him navigating the mistakes he’s made and the choices he’s confronted with and the result is a maze of trains, portentous dreams and anticipated texts that ultimately deliver him to–where else?–Rochester.

And that Rochester is both mythic and literal. A swirl of lights, a staggering into its arms.

As for the music, Curless is a man who knows how to write a pop song and The Writers Of Our Destiny is loaded with them.

A twelve-song platter of big choruses and inspired verses, there are too many highlights to mention.

But just to name a few, “Trying To Remember” has all the whip of early Cars singles; the power and crunch of “Love Or Fear (pt 2)” is decidedly catchy and “Stop Complaining” is an energetic blast of jittery new wave.

Elsewhere, the jangling “If You Ever Have Your Doubts” is powered by a mighty call-and-response and the album closing “And In My Dreams” is as ethereal as it is percussive.

You can buy the album here: