Usually I have an aversion to Kickstarter campaigns, but I’ll give Swearing at Motorists a pass, if only because the first album in eight years from this band is something a lot of us in Ohio crave. Plus, the Daytonian outfit has long provided late-night nourishment and the perfect playlists for drunk nostalgia. Sir Dave Doughman, the driving force, so to speak, has been in self-imposed exile in Hamburg, Germany, raising a son, but it’s doubtful the writing bug was ever smashed, and as such he has a full-length record, While Laughing, The Joker Tells the Truth, waiting for the funds to birth it into the physical world. As such, I can’t think of a more worthy cause than giving this guy your loot so we can be assured another platter of his laments, especially given they’ve been stewing and marinating for nearly a decade.

“Groundhog Day (Damn the Piper)” is our first glimpse of Joker and the song is trademark Motorists. Doughman spends the first 30 seconds settling in, plucking a sparse guitar melody while slowly building harmonies with his swaggering, albeit humble, croon. Drums, this time played by Martin Boeters, beat with a peculiar shuffle that continues throughout in a woozy kind of déjà vu. Swearing at Motorists’ greatest strength has always been that nothing sounds exactly like Swearing at Motorists, but Doughman’s calls to “damn the piper, damn the season, damn the way we defy reason” seem classic among his canon of quotable lyrics. This song sounds comfortable and rings pure and homemade. That is until Doughman throws a curve, lilting the track with a cheeky synth line seemingly straight from a Cars album. That fresh edge is enough evidence that Doughman’s tried-and-true formula is always changing and should be something anticipated in an age where his likeness is mold-breaking. Lo-fi chess and hi-fi dreams could abound. I would give the guy my money should he ask.