Rumble Strip – Sayonara Baby (2025)
Rumble Strip’s Sayonara, Baby doesn’t creep politely into the room; it kicks the door open with a grin and a guitar lick. Written and recorded in just under ninety days, the album brims with the urgency of a creative spark too lively to overthink. It’s part Americana confessional, part power-pop joyride, with side trips into rockabilly and blues. What ties it all together is the odd-couple chemistry of Dave Nachmanoff’s seasoned melodic instincts and Richard Rossi’s razor-edged wit, creating a timeless record that is impossible not to replay.
The impressive sense of wit and craft from instinct without overthinking makes this a memorable and thrilling collection of tracks. It’s a ten-song reminder that when musicians follow their impulses rather than their formulas, something rare and vital can emerge.
At the core of Rumble Strip are two unlikely collaborators: Dave Nachmanoff, best known as Al Stewart’s longtime guitarist and a seasoned solo songwriter in his own right, and Richard Rossi, a professional joke writer and children’s book illustrator with a knack for sly, whip-smart lyricism. Their partnership shouldn’t make sense, but it does, gloriously. With drummer Bart van der Zeeuw and backing vocalist Megan Kleven rounding out the sound, the album feels both loose and meticulously crafted, a collision of tall tales and big hooks.
The title track, ‘Sayonara, Baby’, opens the record with buoyant guitar lines and a bittersweet hook that leans more toward pop than folk. It’s a proper handshake of a song: warm, funny, and a little world-weary. That humour, sometimes self-deprecating, sharp-edged, runs like a current through the whole album. On ‘Uber Driver’, the duo turns a mundane modern occupation into a rollicking character sketch, while ‘Actuary of Love’ finds Rossi’s wordplay at its most deliciously absurd, wrapped in Nachmanoff’s melodic finesse.
But this isn’t novelty songwriting; it’s wit in service of deeper observation. ‘It Could Always Be ‘is a standout in that regard: what could have been a tossed-off phrase becomes a meditation on resilience, set against a jangling backdrop that recalls early Wilco or The Jayhawks.
‘Lousy Day’ disguises melancholy in a playful, almost sing-along arrangement, a technique that feels borrowed from the great pop craftsmen of the late ’70s. Nachmanoff’s guitar work is the album’s quiet anchor. On ‘South of the Border’, he stretches into a more spacious, rootsy arrangement, giving Rossi’s storytelling a cinematic quality.
‘He Talks to Me’ slows the tempo for a heartfelt ballad, Kleven’s harmonies adding a warmth that lingers. By the time we reach ‘Adam West’, a tongue-in-cheek ode that feels like both tribute and inside joke, the band has proven it can pivot from sincerity to absurdity without missing a beat.
The album closer, ‘Thumbs Up’, ties it all together: a compact, optimistic send-off that underscores the album’s refusal to take itself too seriously.
What’s striking about Sayonara, Baby is its refusal to be pigeonholed. While Americana and folk form the backbone, the songs spill comfortably into other territories: the brisk snap of rockabilly, the shimmer of power-pop, the shuffle of blues. That elasticity gives the record its charm; it never feels like pastiche, only possibility.
Sayonara, Baby, is the sound of two creative spirits taking a gamble and having it pay off. Rossi’s playful pen and Nachmanoff’s seasoned musicianship make for a partnership that shouldn’t work on paper, but on record, it feels inevitable. By turns witty, poignant, and irresistibly tuneful, Rumble Strip’s debut is less a farewell than a bright hello.
Find out more about Rumble Strip on their Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Spotify.
