Sean Spada The Wild Ride (photo and design by Tasha Lutek)

Cue drumroll! Snapping right out of the gate with the big pianos hooks, Sean Spada is pounding the keys with a shiny new record, The Wild Ride, out this week, and we here at Full Time Aesthetic have your exclusive first listen.

Bigger vocals, spacey synths, and his full backing band, the Doppelgängers, accompany Spada’s classic keys this time around, as he warbles his way through troubled times navigating a world filled with anxiety and peril. The Brooklyn piano man takes a deep dive into the darker corners of the mind exploring the psyche as he never quite has before. Maybe that’s why, sometimes subdued and loungy, sometimes big full band swing, throughout the The Wild Ride, Spada often teeters somewhere between Randy Newman and Huey Lewis.

Pop sensible beyond its lyrical wake, it’s apparent in the more structured places like “When You’re Crazy” and “Getting on the Highway.” Other times, the albums zags over into looser jam territories like on “Spacing Out” or the six and a half minute epic “Doppleganger Jungle” that really showcase the skill of the album’s players.

Not every track here is a “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” nor does it need to be. Just like not every thought in our heads should be uttered aloud, Spada indeed takes us on a wild ride, navigating the spectrum of the human psyche, or one possible version therein. Sometimes things are clear cut and make sense, other times they don’t, and sometimes things get weird. It’s usually a little of both a whole lot of the other.

For students of the music and the mind, should they dare, the sheet music for the entire album will be available for purchase on both Spada’s Bandcamp and website. The record itself will be available for mass consumption across all streaming platforms this Friday Oct 7th. And Spada will be celebrating with a release show and performing it live with the full band of Doppelgängers along with Onesie and Pete Donnelly Combo next Tuesday Oct 11 at Pianos. Get tickets here and take a listen to the full album below: