We could have easily titled this column ‘Making Sense of It All: The Kyle Sowashes and the Enduring Power of Indie Rock Honesty,’ because the band’s new record not only showcases their musical growth but also highlights how their plainspoken sincerity continues to resonate in a genre often crowded with irony and affectation.
Independent rock has long thrived on the margins—small rooms, frayed gear, and bands that carve out meaning from the ordinary. Few groups embody this spirit as honestly and as energetically as The Kyle Sowashes, the long-running Columbus, Ohio outfit centered around singer, guitarist, and songwriter Kyle Sowash. Their terrific new record, Start Making Sense, feels both like a culmination of years of steady work and a refreshed sense of purpose. It is an album that sounds lived-in yet ambitious, familiar yet surprisingly expansive.
Like so many of their releases, it is driven by a collaborative band spirit, anchored by Sowash’s unmistakable songwriting voice. But on Start Making Sense, the musicians around him play an especially notable role. This is not merely a collection of songs written by a single songwriter—it is a group effort in the best sense, marked by thoughtful arrangements, spirited performances, and a chemistry that can only develop after years of making music together. The result is a record that feels warm, wry, cathartic, and deeply human.
A Band Made of People, Not Parts
The Kyle Sowashes have always been a band that foregrounds musicianship over mythology. No one is placed on a pedestal; every member shapes the sound. On Start Making Sense, the interplay among the musicians is central to what makes the record feel so alive.
At the center, of course, is Kyle Sowash, the principal songwriter, guitarist, and narrator of the band’s emotional landscape. His style has always blended self-deprecation with sincerity, humor with frustration, resignation with hope. He writes songs the way people talk when they’ve stopped trying to impress anyone. That honesty, paired with a gift for sticky melodies and driving chord progressions, continues to anchor the band.
But the supporting cast expands and elevates the material. The rhythm section, always a strength for the group, is especially tight on this release. The basslines give songs bounce and propulsion, while the drumming adds both momentum and nuance—capable of big-room punch but also subtle shifts in tone that mirror Sowash’s lyrical turns. Together they give the album its shape: urgent when needed, contemplative when the songs pull inward.
The guitar arrangements, too, show a band deeply comfortable playing with space. There are moments of noisy celebration, fuzzed-out riffs, and guitar lines that nod to 90s indie rock and power pop without ever feeling derivative. But there is also restraint when the songs call for it—arpeggiated lines, single-note phrases, and open-chord patterns that accent Sowash’s vocal pacing. The band understands when to push and when to stay out of the way, and that mutual sensitivity is one of the record’s quiet triumphs.
All of this makes Start Making Sense feel less like a front-person project and more like a snapshot of a genuine musical community. The band members are collaborators—not session players—and the record reflects that shared vision.
Sound: An Indie Rock Dial Tuned Just Right
The defining pleasure of listening to The Kyle Sowashes is the feeling that the band knows exactly who they are and that they approach their sound not as a limitation but as an expressive engine. Start Making Sense follows this tradition, delivering songs that are rooted in classic indie rock but refreshed through craft, energy, and emotional clarity.
The album’s guitar-forward sound recalls the big-hearted crunch of bands like Superchunk, The Weakerthans, early Guided by Voices, and 90s midwestern basement rock. But The Kyle Sowashes are not imitators. Their tone is warmer, their pacing more deliberate, their hooks more conversational. They capture what it feels like to be a functional adult who still carries adolescent anxieties; what it feels like to want to grow but not always know how.
The production strikes a careful balance. It is clean enough to reveal the band’s tight musicianship but raw enough to preserve the lived-in charm that defines their identity. The vocals are present but never over-polished; the guitars are textured but not overly layered; the drums have a live-room feel that makes even the more introspective songs sound communal.
This approach is particularly effective because Sowash’s songwriting thrives on immediacy. These songs feel like they were meant to be played in small rooms full of people who understand what it’s like to try, fail, and try again. The sonic palette—guitars that jangle and buzz, drums that sprint and shuffle, bass that grounds and guides—mirrors the emotional palette of the songs themselves.
What the Lyrics Reveal: Vulnerability Without Pretension
What has always separated Kyle Sowash from many of his indie rock peers is his ability to write lyrics that feel like real conversations. He avoids metaphors that spin out into abstraction and instead leans on the everyday: the tension between optimism and exhaustion, the mundane rhythms of adulthood, the stubborn persistence of doubt.
On Start Making Sense, the lyrics feel particularly pointed. There is a thematic thread running through the record about wanting to take stock of one’s life, wanting to be better (or at least different), but also feeling the tug of old habits or long-held insecurities. This tension animates the album emotionally.
Sowash wrestles with questions familiar to anyone who has lived long enough to feel the weight of their own decisions:
- Am I becoming the person I hoped to be?
- Am I letting people down without realizing it?
- Is it too late to make meaningful changes?
- Why does clarity arrive when I am least prepared for it?
And yet, the writing never lapses into self-pity. Sowash has a rare talent for pairing difficult emotions with flashes of humor or casual understatement. His delivery—half earnest, half exasperated—adds to this effect. Even in the most introspective moments, he trusts his audience. He doesn’t sermonize or hide behind dense metaphor. He simply tells the truth as he sees it.
The Album as a Whole: Why Start Making Sense Works
The strength of the record lies not just in its individual songs but in its overall narrative arc. Start Making Sense feels like a journey, not in a conceptual or theatrical sense, but in the emotional progression from beginning to end.
The early tracks tend to have a forward-thrusting, energetic urgency—songs filled with questions, doubts, and attempts to find clarity. As the album unfolds, the pacing shifts: there are moments of introspection, acceptance, humor, resignation, and renewed commitment.
By the final songs, the album arrives somewhere quieter and more grounded. The narrator has not solved everything—far from it—but there is a sense of movement, of incremental progress. And that sense is arguably more meaningful than any dramatic revelation would be.
This emotional pacing mirrors the band’s musical pacing. The guitars pull back when the lyrics sink deeper; the rhythm section tightens when the narrator feels unsettled; the arrangements widen when Sowash leans into hopeful refrains. The band listens to the songs, and the songs reward that attention.
Why They Matter Now
There is something profoundly refreshing about hearing a band like The Kyle Sowashes release a record like Start Making Sense in 2025. In a music culture where so many albums are shaped by algorithms, trends, or online personas, this record feels defiantly human. It is made by musicians who value craft, community, and honesty over spectacle.
Moreover, the themes of Start Making Sense—struggle, ambivalence, small victories, persistent hope—resonate in a cultural moment marked by fatigue and uncertainty. Many listeners will hear echoes of their own lives in the record: the feeling of trying to recalibrate when everything seems slightly off; the desire to “start making sense” of things that once felt straightforward.
The album does not promise transformation or transcendence. Instead, it offers companionship—a reminder that confusion and self-questioning are universal, and that music can help make sense of things even when life does not.
A Career Highlight and a Quiet Triumph
Start Making Sense stands as one of The Kyle Sowashes’ most affecting and best-crafted albums. It blends the energy of earlier records with a deeper emotional palette; it shows a band confident in its identity yet open to growth. The musicianship is sharp, the lyrics are resonant, and the sound manages to be both comfortingly familiar and subtly evolved.
It is not merely a strong indie rock record—it is a document of adulthood, of persistence, of reassessment, of trying again. In its modesty, it finds profundity; in its humor, it finds catharsis; in its unvarnished honesty, it finds connection. For longtime fans, Start Making Sense will feel like a natural and satisfying next chapter. For new listeners, it offers a compelling introduction to a band that has quietly built one of the most sincere bodies of work in Midwestern indie rock. And for everyone, it offers something increasingly rare: a rock album that makes you feel less alone.
your tuesday afternoon alternative 