AJR - The Click (Deluxe Edition) [2LP]

AJR's The Click captures three New York brothers working out adulthood in real time, and this limited deluxe edition spreads it across two LPs pressed on eco vinyl.

Released in 2017 as the trio's second studio album, The Click came together in the Manhattan living room where Adam, Jack and Ryan Met write, record and produce their own music. Ryan's production, a patchwork of brass stabs, samples, handclaps and stacked harmonies, set the theatrical template the band would carry into much bigger rooms.

The songs are anxious, funny and strangely comforting. "Weak" turns a confession about giving in to temptation into a stomping singalong, while "Sober Up" brings in Rivers Cuomo of Weezer for a wistful refusal to grow up. "The Good Part" waits impatiently for life to begin, and "Come Hang Out" closes the original album with a shrug about busy schedules and drifting friendships.

The deluxe sequence carries the story a little further with the songs that followed, and two discs give the overture, the interludes and the big choruses room to land with proper weight.

For anyone who discovered AJR through a viral clip or a festival set, this is the record where their blend of confessional pop and musical theatre first clicked into place. The pun is entirely theirs.