7/10

Having already made his mark with a flurry of impactful offerings over the years, Asheville’s own Little Champion (aka Dustin Goldklang) returns with his eagerly-awaited sophomore album 'Peaks Island and Other Places'. It’s a record that feels like an inside joke shared mid-existential crisis, and it lands with striking sincerity.

The follow-up to 2022’s 'Curiosity' trades in the charming, lo-fi folk-punk honesty of Goldklang’s early work for something both broader and more refined without losing the unvarnished spirit that made his music stick in the first place. Written and self-produced in his attic-turned-studio, the album stretches its legs into dreamier textures and bolder genre mashups. Think quiet musings whispered through a pop-punk megaphone, or bedroom-folk that took a detour through a synth-pop carnival.

What’s remarkable is how 'Peaks Island and Other Places' manages to carry its emotional weight so lightly. Songs about loss, displacement, and longing feel raw and unfiltered, but they’re also kind of funny? Not in a gimmicky way, but in that deeply human way where everything hurts and you can’t help but laugh because you’ve cried enough already.

You’ll hear echoes of Mount Eerie’s introspection, Jonathan Richman’s charming awkwardness, and the home-recorded immediacy of early Frankie Cosmos. But Goldklang is never imitating as he filters it all through his own wry, unpolished lens. The result is a sound that feels unmistakably his own: deeply personal, purposefully imperfect, and quietly powerful.

In a time when so much music leans into pristine polish and lyrical vagueness, 'Peaks Island and Other Places' is gloriously specific, emotionally messy, and all the better for it. Little Champion is here to ask the kinds of questions that make you feel just a little more seen.