Erin Tobey - Middlemaze (2016)

Middlemaze is about life after being young. Erin Tobey has been settled in Bloomington, IN for more than a decade now. Even with many friends lured away to the coasts and the small town tempo rarely escalating, Tobey has kept busy w/ numerous projects, musical and visual. Taking stock of this time gone by, Tobey blends the pastoral, philosophical, and funny mundane: the hubris of youth, the ambiguous middle path between right and wrong, seasons changing, device addiction, the self-reflection inspired by closed-circuit TVs in the mall. The album's energetic numbers stomp with shimmering guitars and pop-punk propulsion. This soon gives way to Tobey's quintessential starry folk, depicting married love and apocalyptic dread with equal tenderness.