Album cover by Hypnodoll™ / Photos by Alice Teeple

Singer-songwriter-producer-Renaissance man Charlie Nieland’s album Stories From The Borderlines offers a smoothly impressionistic, almost eccentric, obliquely uplifting, and often life-affirming set of timely songs that will intrigue and invigorate sentient organisms everywhere. Based in late 70s and 80s post-punk but informed by guitar pop from all decades past, it at will turns psychedelic and shoegazey for extra effect; Charlie commands an urbanely cultivated arsenal of sounds and moods. He can take the paradigms of the classics and renew them, refresh them, recontextualize them, and go where he wants with them.

With the ways he communicates his lyrics, he leads us through a world where better things are possible. Now, it would seem to not be saying much considering the veritable Hell of non-society in which we live, but it’s the part where better things are possible that’s important here. Most artists offer hope, but little in the way of naming the problem. Others can name a problem, but offer little in the way of hope. Not only is Charlie certainly not afraid to name the problems (e.g. “The harvest of the books you banned / Is guilt and fear and shame,” “Twisting facts for their purpose,” “Our deus ex machina / Betrays us with a kiss,” “You black pill incel work of art”), but he also gives us—if cryptic—analyses of them, epiphanic hints of their solutions that motivate us to contemplation and to better ourselves and the world around us.

Consider the opening of “Brutalist Monuments,” a gyrating but lumbering abstract bass line with a powerful timbre and a touch of delay, bringing to mind the often unwieldy construction of the eponymous buildings—construction for better and even more so for the worse says the song. There might be housing projects the world over in so-called developed nations, but are they truly good and decent? Reflective of what kind of society exactly? Charlie laments that “we cannot find the soul inside us” and then cleverly sequences his later lamentation over our collective devolution: “We were stars then slime then things with brains.”

My only critique is that I’m not exactly sure how Brutalism on its own specifically analogizes to atomization. After all, apartments in just about any stark, bland, utilitarian style could accomplish the same thing in similar perversity. Do people even really like the “let’s-not-actually-put-any-real-effort-into-designing-our-products-and-pass-it-off-as-a-form-following-function-artform” aesthetic sleight of hand of minimalism? Or do they just pretend to because it makes them feel cultured, sophisticated, and intelligent? To be fair; more valid questions brought up by the song. Another point to Charlie.

“Win” is an uplifting, life-affirming offer of sympathy for the oppressed. Its build-up convinces us to be hopeful with encouraging words like “Songs of celebration / Become battle cries / And every wrath is faithful / When you’re holding on so tight.” A tag team with featured rapper spiritchild, he reiterates Charlie’s sentiments, leading the extended outro with a solid voice and confident delivery; resolve through solidarity is the lesson they teach us.

Another example of Charlie’s wisdom lies in “Drown,” which has images of dancing “while cars were crashing” and is ultimately set against a mysterious backdrop of near disaster. Its chiming and psychedelic guitars turn shoegazey; we can’t escape our fate, but we can deal with it and even face it head on.

Adding to an undercurrent of psychedelia running throughout much of Stories From The Borderlines, “Redshift” is a dreamy reminder to take charge of one’s life. My bias toward psychedelia and especially dream pop, shoegaze, and ethereal wave prevents me from thinking it ironic in any way that a song ultimately about the reality of one’s life is presented with such gossamer, illusory, and surreal music. In this way, Charlie teaches us that more than any fantasy, it is beautiful when the dream comes true.

“Shame” is a fun shot at angry young men that spend all day thoughtlessly watching anime and playing video games and end up wondering why they lack a personality with which to attract supermodels, let alone coeds and girls next door, to their genitals. Its build-up teases these “black pill incel work[s] of art” like the trans girls they hate to love (“Dying to be hurt by an Invert flirt”). Its lyrics, e.g. “You seek the bizarre to disguise your own pain,” seem to agree with me. Only thing is that Charlie should be almost belting them by the final few sections of the song—and the instrumentation should be doing the equivalent. Regardless, “Shame” functions perfectly well as a single-ready bop (which it was) with all of its teeth gleefully bared.

An interesting diversion from the mostly hopeful wisdom in Stories, “Back to Life” is a ballad about exactly what it says on the tin; there is always sorrow that we cannot practice necromancy for those loved and lost. Balancing acoustic guitar with some watery electric leads, it deserves mention not just because it hits differently, but because it hits deeply—with a dry but plaintive personal story and a futile plea for reanimation. It sounds bittersweet as we hear the sad smile in Charlie’s voice dealing with the hard truths of loss. While he mostly gives us life wisdom, here he is not forgetting about death.

The songwriting on Stories From The Borderlines is great, the sounds are superb, and the messages are necessary, but there are just a few points on the album when one can’t help but wonder what they would feel like if Charlie broke free of his—and/or anyone’s—concepts of artistic restraint. Some more intense effects all around could push many of the guitars and synths to more evocative places. Some more force or volume on the vocals, at least to bring as much variety to them as there is to the guitars and synths, would heighten the stakes and give the album some dynamism.

But this isn’t to tear down the album in general. It’s simply to say that Charlie is at his best when he doesn’t pull his punches. The fuller dreaminess and psychedelia of “Drown,” “Redshift,” and “You Fell Down,” the knowing cool criticisms in “Shame,” the smoother and more crooning vocals in “Redshift,” and the stronger vocals in “You Fell Down” are all examples. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, more intense moments like these would, as aforementioned, create starker juxtapositions, more dramatic contrasts, higher highs, and lower lows. The wide spectrum of colors Charlie presents does help to grab attention, however, so his efforts are still above those of most artists in that regard; he should perfect what is already good. After all, I didn’t accidentally almost commit the critical faux pas of writing a song-by-song album review because more than half of the album didn’t stand out to me as remarkable in the most aesthetic, meaningful, and indelible ways.

That being said, whether it’s the sounds or the concepts, Charlie is always keeping things fascinating and mind-expanding with just enough graceful fingerprints of human touch present across the album. The spirit of guitar pop is honored in layered and textured songs. Ingeniously, many of the song structures here are as radio-friendly as they are explorative and/or linear. The result is an invitingly challenging, but surprisingly accessible album in which flourishes of surreality and psychedelia abound. Anyone looking for coolly stylized sounds, insightful songwriting, and unique composition should give Stories From The Borderlines a listen.

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