Ain't Ain't Ain't

Tim Fite is a Brooklyn-based musician, ace wordsmith, and something of a studio wizard: working with a TV on the Radio–meets–Dr. Dog palette of sound, Fite recorded various instrumental parts with friends and musicians, later slicing, pasting, and looping tracks into songs. From the first strains of the opener “Hold Me All Night,” with its full-bodied, rollicking, indie-rock buoyancy, to the funereal juju of the title track (“This ain’t the way/our bodies were meant to be found” is a repeated line), Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t is filled with smart, ambitiously hybrid songs that hit the bull's-eye every time. Fite has left the hip-hop beats of Gone Ain’t Gone behind (he was half of Little T and One Track Mike: “Shaniqua,” anyone?). Here, he filters the experimental feel of Fair Ain’t Fair with a more straightforward indie rock aesthetic. Fife’s clever, pointed lyrics on issues like loneliness and bullying resonate over oscillating synths, horns, foot-stomping wood blocks, accordions, and more. “We Are All Teenagers” hits the target dead-on, with a hope-giving, anthemic chorus capable of lifting all of us on a bad day.