An enthralling album spanning from dreamy, hypnotic introspection to synth-laden theatrics and rousing, spirited rock, Ins is the latest from Jared Fullerman. The Ohio-based artist’s 2023 debut Albatross immersed with its quality songwriting, landing at #26 on our year-end best albums list, and Ins continues that knack for engaging songcraft. This 20-track follow-up expands his sound considerably in scope and ambition while holding onto the deliberate, detail-oriented sensibility that made the debut so compelling.
Ins also dazzles in its balance of inventive recording techniques with an embrace for the spontaneity. The release’s snare sounds were recorded with a pillowcase on the batter head for control. On lead single “Super Senior (Smooth Stones),” which shifts seamlessly from twangy late-night contemplations to synth-touched bursts of ardor, the pillowcase slipped off mid-take during the outro, altering the snare’s character across the song’s final lines in a way he hadn’t planned. He kept it.
That willingness to recognize when something unintended becomes essential and enjoyable runs through Ins, its heart-on-sleeve emotion pairing with off-the-cuff techniques for a consistently memorable listening experience. Alongside this are wonderfully melodic creations; “Super Senior (Smooth Stones)” excels especially in its synth/guitar interplay and “like a baby…” vocal pushes into harmonious layers, thematically presenting as a candid meditation on procrastination and delayed milestones, serving also as a spiritual sequel to “Sophomore Slump” from Albatross.
“Between Bricks,” the album’s second single, is the one Fullerman names as hardest to write and the one he’s particularly proud of. Built from a guitar riff that arrived first, with everything else written chronologically from there, it was shaped by heavy listening to Grizzly Bear and Feels-era Animal Collective. A more stripped-down guitar ballad by design, it nonetheless builds steadily into something larger. The third single, “Smoke (I Blame),” rounds things out with a key-forward pop sensibility, spacious and dreamy before closing with a surge into distortion that lands as resolution rather than surprise.
The album stirs beyond its singles, as well. “One-Way Ticket Scalpers” features a gorgeous piano arrangement, vibrant and melodically buoyant as Fullerman muses on the self-imposed paralysis of staying anchored to familiar delusions, captured when the lyrics observe how “you’re sworn to your chair and only care to stroke your comfort’s cloth.” Elsewhere, “In Sand” builds into effervescent synth-ready intensity alongside invigorating piano work, while pondering the time and impact spent building fragile facades: “But castles and mounds are the first to be kicked / ‘Til the remnants are lost to the waves.”
The eight “Ins Conclusion” tracks complete the album, adding further vulnerability and palpable emotion. “These songs only prove that I’m a can of words, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting,” he sings on “Ins Conclusion, Part 3: Only in Waves,” enamoring with a tropical mix of twangy guitars and colorful synths. The latter is beautifully interwoven amidst wordless vocal harmonies, for an especially impactful sequence. The theatrical “Ins Conclusion, Part 6: Jared Fullerman vs. the Cognitive Dissonance” envelops as well, its sense of anxiety apparent in lines like “smoke is creeping in” and furthered themes of personal stagnation, here set within a wide range of both piano-set balladry and impassioned art-rock. A rich and rewarding listen front to back, Ins marks Fullerman as an artist whose ambition is matched only by his ear for the moment when a song finds exactly what it needs to be.
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