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Charly “The City Mouse” Fasano has become an underground icon thanks to So You Think You Can Reab, the self-produced CD zines containing his funny and often bitter verses. But rocket ship to obscurity, his debut full-length, may just be his best work to date.
Recorded with the help of friends in Lucero and Drag the River, and featuring a guest reading by former Lagwagon frontman Joey Cape, rocket ship finds power in its vital eclecticism — from the solemn strings of “vegas” to the jaunty, mocking lounge horns of “slam poet” to the perfect, reverb-encased strums of “memphis.” Each song is unique and gracefully married to a soundtrack, with Fasano’s narratives charting a neo-noir American landscape, dotted with bus stations and bars, that he pulls apart and puts back together one bittersweet line at a time.
Overall, Fasano’s words are steeped in the type of whiskey-soaked, old-school authenticity that false fashion-Bukowskis strive for. Or, as he notes so perfectly on “memphis,” he’s a “cup of Sanka in a Starbucks universe.
