California-based singer/songwriter and musician Brandon Hoogenboom is best known as the creative mastermind behind HOOGENBOOM. His full-length debut, Good For Nothing (A Spiraling Blackout Montage) is slated for a February 10, 2023 release through Rose Garden, a newly-formed Brooklyn-based artist management company and label, founded by Ethan Converse.
Good For Nothing (A Spiraling Blackout Montage) is reportedly a collection of bold, beatific melodies cut with Hoogenboom’s deeply-lived in, introspective songwriting. “A lot of emotion went into these songs,” the Californian singer/songwriter and musician says. “This is the first collection of recorded music that I’m really proud of, and it feels like it’s just the beginning—but every day I’m pushing myself and my art forward, too.” For Hoogenboom, the album represents a showcase for his talent for crafting songs featuring lush atmospherics and an irresistible tuneless that sounds and feels timeless and immediate. Interestingly, the album sees Hoogenboom reflecting on a dark period in his life that the album’s title gestures towards: “I had a tendency to take things too far in an attempt to cope with what felt like the breakup of a tight-knit family,” he explains. “A lot of this album is me taking the time to address my issues inside and outside of the band, and it’s taken a decade for me to really understand that period of my life and be able to move on. This is me learning how much I need to take the reins of my own life and my own story.”
The album’s latest single “Damn Good” today is a breezy yet deliberately crafted 70s AM radio rock-inspired jam centered around strummed acoustic guitar, fluttering synths, glistening strings and Fleetwood Mac-like multi-part harmonies are paired Hoogenboom’s deceptively easy-going yet plaintive delivery. But the song is rooted in a narrator, who has a newfound security and confidence in the face of criticism.“After spending most of my life feeling incredibly insecure, I finally found confidence in myself,” Hoogenboom says. “I let go of the pressure to conform to what I felt like the world was telling me to be and found the joy in embracing who I am.”