Acoustic Reserve just released their first single of the year “Thanks for Asking,” a raw heartfelt track about pretending you’re fine when you’re really not. Beautiful acoustic guitar work meets big reverb soaked soundscapes and tastefully layered vocals, with the music matching the emotional message perfectly. Chris Haughey on vocals and guitar plus Jim Hollenbach on guitar have built a sound that lives somewhere between nostalgia and emotional grit, an authentic stripped down feel that speaks intimately to the listener and will feel right at home for fans of Mt. Joy, Caamp and The Head and the Heart.
Lyrically, the song lives in the in between, after something ends but before you’ve moved on, touching on fake smiles, unsaid words and the space where we sit when everything feels unfinished. Haughey says “Thanks for Asking” is about the disconnect between how we present ourselves and how we actually feel, explaining that we’re all out here pretending to be fine and smiling through the wreckage, but the truth is it’s okay to not be okay for a while. He thinks if more of us admitted that, we’d build better connections and stop feeling so alone in it, a sentiment that runs through every note of this deeply relatable track.
The cover art features an acoustic guitar in the bed of an old pickup with the sun shining through the windshield, providing listeners a visual for exactly how the song feels. Acoustic Reserve are tapping into something real here, creating music that doesn’t hide behind production tricks or empty lyrics but instead sits with you in those uncomfortable moments we all experience but rarely talk about openly, building bridges through honesty instead of walls through pretending everything’s perfect when it absolutely isn’t.