Tracy Perry Jr. has been building Perry Project since 2007, when he launched it on Myspace from Seattle after relocating from a remote Mojave Desert town where, by his own account, the Walmart opening made front-page news. The Minneapolis-based duo – Tracy on vocals, acoustic guitar, and songwriting, with lead guitarist Stafford Christensen – recorded “Animals That Trusted You” across 2024 with producer Owen Sartori, and the album arrives June 26th on all major platforms plus vinyl and CD. The subject matter is personal in the most direct sense: divorce, family separation, broken trust, and the particular silence that follows when relationships fall apart without a clean resolution. The influence list – REM, The Police, Tears for Fears, Oasis, The Killers – is worn honestly rather than aspirationally, and the record’s blend of alternative rock textures with atmospheric restraint reflects a band that has been at this long enough to know what they’re actually going for.
What really stood out on this album is how inspired the melodies are. The melodic sense across the entire record is something special – familiar and fresh at the same time. The catchiest moment, in my opinion, is “Nonsense Just Feels So Wrong,” because the lyrics fit with the melody like puzzle pieces. That melody needs those words, and those words need to be sung with that exact conviction for it to land. It does.
“Detinue Ballet” is a much more adventurous song rhythmically. Its groove is funky and tight, and the descending chromatic motif is such an earworm it’s difficult to put the song down, which is impressive given it’s the shortest track on the album, though I’ve probably listened to it the most. In live performances, this song could easily sustain an extended outro because the groove genuinely has those kinds of legs.
“Sad Song in Your Town” takes a more straightforward pop-rock approach, and what makes it stand out is the personality that comes through in the delivery and the personal experience embedded in the lyrics. “Callous,” the lead single, is another clean example of a great song – it feels more modern with its ambient guitar layers building a bigger-than-life wall of sound, which works sharply against the song’s theme of emotional detachment.
“Animals That Trusted You” is Perry Project’s third album and their most direct record yet. Tracy spent years writing songs in his head on desert bus stops, recording homemade radio shows as a kid, and writing material during Air Force deployments on his one day off per week. That kind of long accumulation tends to show up in the work eventually, and it does here. The album doesn’t try to resolve what it’s examining – it sits in the aftermath instead, which is the more honest and ultimately more interesting choice.
