Shakey Graves Fondness Etc Review
Shakey Graves has created one of the most personal and warmest albums he’s ever made with his latest release of “Fondness, Etc.”.
This album goes in a complete opposite direction of his last album “Movie of the Week”, and even the album before that “Can’t Wake Up”.
I was lucky enough to hear the album days before its release, and in one of the most special ways imaginable. Still, I wanted to sit with the record before writing about it. I wanted to absorb it for everything it is and perhaps more importantly, the way Shakey Graves himself intended it to be heard: at home, through a stereo, fully present and in the moment. Not in a busy world where music often becomes little more than background noise to get us through the day.
When I say I got the album in one of the most special of ways, here is what I meant.
I’m still not sure how I was chosen, but a handful of fans across the country received a package similar to this as a thank you for their support. Inside was a specially dubbed cassette featuring Fondness, Etc. on one side and a mixtape of songs that inspired the album on the other. Along with that was a note from Shakey, a custom Victrola cassette player, a candle from Ranger Station in Nashville, SG matches, and a Secret Identity tote.
That gift made listening to the album feel even more intentional. It encouraged me to experience it the way it was meant to be experienced: slowing down, pressing play, and giving the music my full attention.
So much of modern music consumption is passive. Songs play in the background of commutes, workdays, scrolling, noise. But Shakey made a record to resist that notion entirely. It asks for presence. Not just casual listening, but intentional listening, the kind that used to be built into physical formats like cassette tapes, where you had to sit with a side of music from start to finish before turning it over and beginning again.
The cassette package, the mixtape of influences, the tactile objects, the quiet nostalgia of physical media; it all reframes the act of listening as something deliberate again. Not infinite, not algorithmic, not disposable. Finite. Human.
In that sense, Fondness, Etc. isn’t just an album that uses nostalgia as a theme. It recreates it as a process. It forces you into the same rhythm as memory itself: linear, imperfect, fading at the edges, replayed rather than skipped.
And what emerges is an album that doesn’t just explore memory—it behaves like memory. Moments drift in and out of focus. Emotions arrive without explanation. Time doesn’t move cleanly forward so much as it loops, softens, and dissolves.
In that way, Fondness, Etc. doesn’t just ask to be heard.
It asks to be remembered.
The album opens with Don’t Change a Thing and immediately sets the tone for what follows. The first lyrics you hear let you know what this album is going to be about – “I can’t help but feeling that the better days have left me behind. They say seeing is believing but I kinda think it’s all in my mind”.
There’s a patient intimacy to the song that feels like an invitation into Graves’ world. The song’s warmth and vulnerability are front and center, allowing you to take in the lyrics with a full clarity. It’s a fitting introduction to an album centered on reflection, nostalgia, and appreciating moments before they slip away.
As an opening track, it accomplishes exactly what it needs to. It gently eases the listener into the world of Fondness, Etc. rather than forcing them into it. “I say don’t, don’t change a thing”.
The next song is When the Love Is New. One of the first singles of the album to release, and the first with a music video.
It’s easy to see why “When the Love Is New” was chosen as the album’s second single. The opening riff. The driving claps. From the moment it begins, the song draws you in and refuses to let go.
In my opinion, this may be the most reflective song on the album. Sitting alone in a quiet room, hearing the subtle hiss of the cassette before the music begins, the song unfolds like a two-sided conversation. The lyrics evoke memories you didn’t realize were still lingering, transporting you to places you’ve been before—some filled with joy, others with heartache.
What makes the song so effective is its understanding that these moments are temporary. The people, places, and feelings that shape us rarely last forever. Yet that impermanence somehow makes them even more beautiful.
Time Flies is the first single released from Fondness, Etc.
It’s worth noting that “Time Flies” wasn’t written by Shakey Graves at all. Originally penned by Frankie Sunswept, the song feels so naturally woven into the fabric of Fondness, Etc. that you’d never know it was a cover. In an album obsessed with the passage of time and preserving fleeting moments, it somehow becomes one of its most fitting songs.
Shakey took the song and completely made it his own, much like he does with any cover he has performed on record or live.
When Shakey announced Fondness, Etc., he explained that he’d first heard Frankie Sunswept perform the song around 2007 and had been carrying it with him ever since. He chose to include it on the album because it fit the sound he was aiming for and described it as “a cover song written by an old friend.
Suddenly is a nice little instrumental track that starts with what sounds like a clock ticking away. Then the guitar and drums hit at the same time.
It has a beautiful softness to it that gently pulls in you in. I’m not sure where your memories lead you when you close your eyes and listen to the track, but I know exactly where I’m at. I don’t want to persuade your memories, but it’s a happy place for me.
Away It Goes sits in a space where you’re aware something is about to end, or even change for the better or worse, but you’re not quite ready to acknowledge it. The song doesn’t try to stop that feeling or fight it; it just observes it. You know it’s there. It knows it’s there.
Each note of the guitar is plucked with restraint, letting the space between them carry just as much emotional weight as the lyrics themselves. On tape, that openness feels even more pronounced, like the song is slowly dissolving as it plays.
Things move on. People change. Moments pass. And instead of resisting that idea, the song accepts it with a kind of calmness that fits perfectly within the album. “Away It Goes”…
The Boilermaker – Lyrically and emotionally, the song feels less like observation and more like reaction. If earlier tracks are about watching time pass, “Boilermaker” feels like realizing you’re still inside it, unable to step outside and make sense of it from a distance.
The instrumentation has a subtle drive to it, almost like it’s trying to push the album out of its reflective haze for a moment. Even so, it never abandons the emotional restraint that defines the record. Instead, it exists in that in-between space that is still thoughtful, but less settled.
I Once Was An Ocean – There’s a weight to the title itself that the song seems to lean into. It suggests transformation, but also distance from whatever you once were. Listening to it on tape, there’s a hazy quality to the sound that makes everything feel slightly submerged, like the song is being remembered rather than directly lived.
A five-minute instrumental track that feels like a memory viewed from a submarine, drifting just beneath the surface of clarity.
By the end, it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to explain what it means to have “once been an ocean.” It just leaves you sitting with the idea. Where earlier songs tried to name emotion, this one removes language entirely
“On My Own” – There’s a kind of stillness to it that feels intentional. Not empty, but self-contained. Like the song is choosing solitude rather than reacting to it. The birds chirping with the guitar driving forward before the vocals hit.
What stands out is how calm it is about the idea of being alone. It isn’t framed as something dramatic or painful here. Instead, it feels observational, almost matter-of-fact. That shift in tone makes it feel more reflective than sorrowful.
It doesn’t resolve anything more so as it simply exists in its own space, comfortable with the solitude around it.
“No Place To Be” – This is the conclusion to everything Fondness, Etc. has been building toward. Not an ending in a dramatic sense, but a gentle settling. Like something finally coming to rest after drifting for a long time.
There’s a sense of emptiness here, like a clear reflection of everything that came before it. The memories, the movement, the reflection that has all passed through, and what’s left is something hard to define.
Listening on tape, it feels especially fitting. The slight hiss, the warmth, it all makes the silence between the notes feel just as important as the notes themselves. It’s less about what’s being said at this point, and more about what’s been left behind.
After everything—recognition, change, loss, solitude—the idea of “no place to be” doesn’t feel like absence. It feels like arrival.
“It’s a tall mountain, well worth the climb”…
Final Thoughts
To me, Fondness, Etc. is the most successful because it doesn’t try to be this grand display. It’s an intimate and reflective album about preserving life’s fleeting moments, holds them up to the light, and asks us to appreciate them before they become memories. Couple that with its Shakey Graves staple lo-fi production, and what you get is an emotional album that hits you where it counts the most. Your heart and head.
Rather than chasing innovation for innovation’s sake, Graves focuses on emotional honesty and atmosphere. The result is one of the most intimate records of his career. An album that doesn’t demand your attention so much as invite you into its world. And once you’re there, it finds its way into both your heart and your head.
