Sadler Vaden's playful spin on Dad Rock.

The guitarist for Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit celebrates new fatherhood and classic rock on this surprise album.

Sadler Vaden—Dad Rock (2024)

Dad Rock is like obscenity: you know it when you hear it.

It's a phrase that's not explicitly musical, nor does it apply to a specific era. Dad Rock is an attitude or, rather, a collective assumption of an assumed audience: a bunch of older dudes, grooving on music that recalls the soundtrack to their youth. Usually, Dad Rock is perceived as an insult, a slight on both the musicians and their listeners. With Dad Rock, a surprise album he's released for Father's Day weekend 2024, Sadler Vaden rejects that notion by embracing every maligned cliche associated with the term.

Vaden, a musician whose main gig is as a guitarist in Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, recently became a father for a second time, an event that spurred him to assemble Dad Rock. Both of Vaden's sons were born after the release of Anybody Out There? in 2020, so this record is an excellent opportunity for the guitarist to explore the myriad of feelings that follow becoming a father. That's not quite what he does here. Naturally, there's a measure of unrepentant sentiment flowing through the record's eight songs: the instrumental "Townsend's Theme" is named for his firstborn, "I'll Always Come Back" echoes words he tells his children before he leaves on tour, the closing ballad "Two Balloons" was written in tribute to his departed parents.

Note that "Townsend's Theme" is neither bittersweet nor cloying: it's a full-blown immersion in a Floydian lava lamp, pulsating with organs and echoes. It's a shameless excursion into the heart of Dad Rock, a sound that could be read as satire if it wasn’t performed with affection and enthusiasm. Vaden replicates this trick throughout Dad Rock, resurrecting riffs and rhythms from the glory days of AOR, acknowledging our shared classic rock vernacular without succumbing to nostalgia. His taste is catholic, befitting a guitarist raised on an abundance of CD reissues and cheap vinyl. He indulges in a bit of Stonesy swagger on "The Rescurer" then eases into a soft rock shimmer on "The New You." He'll anchor "Staying Alive" on a stomping glam refrain that stops just short of Gary Glitter, then weave slight echoes of Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the LIne" through "I'll Always Come Back." 

By expanding his definition of Dad Rock to include such super hits of the 70s, Vaden stakes his claim far afield from the likes of the National or Wilco, to name two bands routinely tagged with the label as a way of signifying a sense of middle-aged dependability. Despite his pivotal role in the 400 Unit, not to mention his work as a producer for Morgan Wade, Vaden is still in the process of carving out his place in the modern rock landscape which gives him a freedom to be playful. Dad Rock wouldn't exist without that sense of mischief, high spirits that intensify the punchy power pop of "Holes" and add a welcome raggedness to his sweetness. That's the reason why Dad Rock is such fun: it's delivered not with a knowing wink but an unabashed grin.