7/10
There is something inherently theatrical about pretending to have life under control. Bills are paid, errands are completed and polite conversations are maintained, even as private anxieties continue to gather behind the scenes. And on his new studio full-length ‘Don’t Rush the Punchline’, LA's Steve Delamater examines that performance with the eye of a satirist and the instincts of a songwriter who understands that laughter often conceals far more than it reveals.
Across eleven tracks, he writes from the uncomfortable threshold between youth and whatever adulthood was supposed to become. His characters complete chores, chase modest goals and attempt to behave like capable human beings while anxiety, memory and general absurdity keep disrupting the schedule. The jokes arrive quickly, but the record rarely treats its subjects lightly. Beneath the wit is a genuine concern with how people remain functional when the world around them feels increasingly ridiculous.
Opening track ‘Minimum Wage’ establishes that balance immediately. A grown man selling Girl Scout cookies door to door is an inherently comic image, yet the scenario also speaks to the indignities and improvisations required to make ends meet. The song’s brevity works in its favour, delivering its premise with punk efficiency before disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived.
That restless pace continues through ‘Breathe Through Your Hips’ and ‘Bad Boy’, where ideas about self-improvement and masculine performance are treated with affectionate scepticism. The frontman has little patience for posturing, but he is equally interested in why people resort to it. His comedy tends to expose insecurity rather than merely mock it, giving the album more empathy than its irreverent surface might initially suggest.
At the centre of the album sits ‘The Middle’, one of its most effective collisions of humour and emotional fatigue, where everyday productivity is placed against the messier reality of depression and anxiety. Its power-pop framework gives those tensions an appealing brightness, while the unexpected shift into heavier territory introduces a burst of chaos that feels entirely appropriate. The song understands the peculiar cruelty of being efficient enough to maintain a life while still feeling unable to control it.
The album’s arrangements match the variety of its subjects. Produced by Kabir Kumar, with additional production from Sam Thorne and C.M. Rodriguez, the record moves between compact punk bursts, melodic guitar pop and larger ensemble pieces without losing its central identity. Organ, flute, piccolo, saxophone, trumpet, harmonica, banjo and slide guitar appear throughout, expanding the six-piece foundation into something more colourful and occasionally theatrical.
By the time ‘Frail’ closes the record, the bravado has largely fallen away. The album doesn't abandon its humour, but gradually reveals how much of it has been protecting. His interest in childhood wounds, generational misunderstanding and the difficulty of preserving hope gives the final stretch a more exposed quality. The record never arrives at a tidy solution, though it does suggest that naming the absurdity may make it slightly easier to endure.
By refusing to divide its serious ideas from its ridiculous ones, the album arrives at something unusually honest. Here, Steve Delamater has created a vivid and frequently entertaining record about the exhausting business of keeping up appearances. But beneath the busy arrangements and quick observations lies a compassionate portrait of people doing their best to look capable while quietly wondering whether anyone else has understood the joke.
