How To Manage A Crisis
Gee Whiz! already made their intentions clear with “Big Fireworks,” a single that revived the nervous optimism of late-70s guitar pop. The album How To Manage A Crisis expands that instinct into something broader. Instead of chasing the past, the record explores why that earlier language still resonates. In a cultural moment that rewards individual branding and solitary production, Gee Whiz! lean into the opposite impulse: the band as a small community, noisy, emotional and slightly chaotic. The album populates that space with characters who feel misaligned with the present. “Mr. Dinosaur” speaks to the overly sensitive souls who struggle to keep pace with a world that demands permanent confidence. “Magic Carpets” imagines alien visitors landing on Earth only to recoil at the confusion they encounter, a surreal mirror held up to contemporary life. “Emily” and “Little Dan” follow figures who choose their own path rather than blending into the crowd, guided by instinct rather than approval. Even the title How To Manage A Crisis carries a subtle shrug. The record never pretends to offer solutions. Instead, it accepts crisis as the atmosphere of the present and answers with something disarmingly simple: friendship, imagination and the pleasure of making noise together. The invitation that closes the album, urging listeners to sing as loud as they can, feels less like a slogan than a small cultural proposition. If everything is slightly off balance anyway, then perhaps the most honest response is to embrace the chaos and turn it into a shared chorus.