Good To Be, due to drop February 16th on the band s own Kelsey Street Records (distributed by Thirty Tigers/Red), was recorded in luxurious, hand-tooled analog with Los Lobos Steve Berlin producing. With their fifth full-length disc, Backyard Tire Fire have achieved one of those big-time, long-haul records that matter far more than the sum of its considerable parts and not via grandiose, larger-than-life lyrical imagery but through blue-collar, common sense miniatures that remind us of the simple beauty present in mundane, daily, person-to-person experience. Which is NOT to say that Good To Be is yet another one of those one-dimensional, granola-rootsy, rustic Americana takes on post-Uncle Tupelo barn-board rock; there is a taste of that, to be sure, but Anderson & Co. have spread the stylistic court with a rich, ever-expanding palette of aural rock n roll colors and textures that tap into bouncy, Kinks-meet-Squeeze Brit pop-rock, Tom Petty-styled Southern rock, Beatle-esque majesty, intimate balladry, chiming folk-rock and heartland/populist chest-pounders. Bearing a consistent message of empathy, humanity and hope, Good to Be is a triumph of Anderson s own thirteen year journey as a rock and roller.