People In the Midwest

The debut solo album by Ryan Groff, singer/songwriter of the minor Illinois indie band Elsinore, is a relatively brief eight-song set of simple, live-sounding one-man performances. Groff accompanies himself on acoustic and electric guitar, a few keyboards, minimal bass and even less percussion. Too carefully arranged and recorded to sound like demos, there's a similar intimacy to these spartan tunes, down to the way Groff is occasionally too closely mic'ed, adding a somewhat distracting breathiness to his vocals. Really, the album's only drawback is that some of Groff's lyrics approach the sort of cringe-worthy awkwardness most often seen in workshops about how to start writing a journal. "Polly" is an undeniably heartfelt farewell to a grandparent, but lines like "The last years of your life were hospital white, I didn't visit enough/Your Catholic faith felt right, it calmed your nerves of ninety years" sing as clunky and flat as they read. Focus on Groff's low-key, folk-ish tunes and People in the Midwest comes across much better.