Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way

My Oh My's second release, the 2015 EP, Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way, delivers six weighty tracks of full-throated choruses, jagged guitar, rowdy keys and tent-revival-sized anthems about life as it's lived. Think the Band backing up Joe Cocker, with Dylan looking on with a half-smile from the wings.

Not all sunsets and mint juleps, Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way is a mature autumn to My Oh My's summery full-length debut, 2014's Your Heart Not Mine, which the Pitch praised as "an album made for warm weather and drinking with the windows open." This follow-up EP finds the band stepping away from whiskey-soaked folk and pushing full-bore into ambitious, anthemic rock territory that evokes the wilder side of Wilco. Aside from the poignant Merker solo "That's All Right With Me," there is nary an acoustic guitar on this record.

"Let's Make Smoke" throws a fistful of riffs and proud middle finger at the idea of settling down as an adult, while the slinky burner "Marianne" looks back wistfully at an old flame. Not so nostalgic, "Thief" tears open an old scar in hopes of finding healing tissue somewhere underneath. "Parade" beckons us to blithely "cut a rug while we've still got legs," while the title track is a by-turns seductive and piledriving sonic assault that affirms the album's central thesis: This may not be the life we planned, but hey, we wouldn't have it any other way.

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