The tennis match that the midwest plays with its transition between winter and spring weather can be a frustrating time for all involved. Energy shifts are frequent and abrupt, sometimes fluctuating in consistency and quantity from year to year. We’re offered hope in the form of 60-degree days in March, a manic wardrobe rotating between shorts and jeans and crops and hoodies. Even when the first sprinkle arrives and puddles form on the street bookends, you can bet there’ll be at least one more snowfall before we get on with spring. A taste before the real thing. A back-and-forth volley with seasonal optimism that can sometimes feel like a purgatory sentence.

There is hope. But there is also the feeling of that hope being swept up from under you without much warning. Take the first Monday of March, for example. Six of the first seven days of the month broke 55 degrees. Columbus midwest garage rock band El Camino Acid sums up this weather phenomenon quite well in its timely, late January release Sunset Motel: There are glimmers of hope intertwined with sultry moments of simping. It feels warm when it comes through your headphones in the winter but also turns cold in the early moments of spring. The album’s ever-changing energy feels right during what many would consider the most volatile pandemic winter thus far.

Something that has brought me much joy when listening to the past two El Camino Acid releases — this past one and 2020’s Stay Mine — is whenever I stumble across a tint of The Strokes in one of their songs. Fortunately for me, we’re hit immediately with a nostalgic wave of garage rock with Strokes-like distortion on the opener “Get Along.” Above all, this twisting guitar noise is one that sounds hopeful — like it had been sitting dormant through the winter and is readily making its emergence. 

The first track is a straight-up banger — a foundation on which the rest of the 10 tracks are built. More so than the past two pandemic-era springs, this one felt like the hardest struggle yet when it came to communicating in any type of relationship. “Mirror Mirror” speaks to the challenge of being the first to reach out: “I would answer my phone but you never ever do it for me.” “Fight For It” touches on jealousy traps, something that has become ever more prevalent as we have moved our lives almost completely online as a society. In general, these songs aren’t in succession but rather spread out throughout the album, further accentuating the back and forth our brains go through when experiencing that condition referred to as seasonal depression. 

The album showcases the group’s garage rock aesthetic in more ways than The Strokes’ influences. The “ooohs” and “wops” and sly delivery of the lyrics on “Chang The Banker” makes it sound like a ‘60s pop jingle on speed. The closing track, “Don’t Wanna Lose You,” has elements in the chorus that remind me of a ‘60s or ‘70s pop jingle (the glistening tone of the guitar, most definitely).

Before walking out of the Giant Eagle GetGo on a Monday in late March, the cashier excitedly warned me of the warmer weather we’d be seeing over the next few days after a weekend of cold rain. The week before, we had also started off with a high of 60, even climbing over 70. In my head, I assured myself that — despite it being the first day of spring — the warmer weather hadn’t completely broken in yet. Before turning right out of GetGo, I saw one of the boys in the band, Conor, pumping gas. It was before noon, and the temperature was approaching 60 degrees and would climb to 70 before the day was done. Whenever I run into somebody from the Columbus scene, I play russian roulette in my head over which cliche I choose to lead with. Luckily for me, the topic had already been predetermined: Conor was filling up gas during a moment in history when oil prices have never been higher. Given we’re both Ohioans, we probably both wanted to avoid talking about the weather because of, well, years of experience.

In music, listing one’s influences can almost seem like a cliche itself, but much like the weather and environment shifts our moods and course of action, our artistic influences do the same. One of the most clear examples of this off of the album are the instrumental breaks on the song “Near Or Far,” which sound like they could’ve been incorporated on The Strokes’ 2020 release The New Abnormal. The idea that this could be seen as a negative confuses me, even more so than how bipolar Ohio’s winters are. But at least they both get us talking.

Overall, Sunset Motel is a very good album to break up the mundane shittiness of winter. 

Follow the band on Instagram.