Kevin Bronson on February 16th, 2011

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You’ve got to hand it to Jim Fairchild – he does not twiddle his thumbs when he’s not on tour as Modest Mouse’s guitarist. This week he released his third album in just under four years as All Smiles. “Staylow and Mighty,” made with an assist from Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer and featuring cameos from Danny Seim on Menomena and Gary Jarman of the Cribs, is a more lush, nuanced affair than 2009’s “Oh for the Getting and Not Letting Go,” slipping deftly between melancholy and agitated indie-pop, wrestling with the notion, the former Grandaddy guitarist says, that “it’s OK to live with ghosts.”

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