The Stoplights represents an enticing new chapter for an exceptional songwriter

Ryan Liam Maguire returns with two potent records under a new moniker.

Across April and May, Ryan Liam Maguire released 40 songs under a new project name, The Stoplights. Ryan Maguire’s latest moniker is at least the sixth that the songwriter has used over the past four years, following Arel Happening, RL Happening, Ryan Liam, Swabber, and Ryan Liams. While the name has fluctuated wildly, the exceptional quality of the songwriting has remained intact.

A majority of the songwriter’s recent outpouring of songs came by way of the song-a-day challenge, in which participating musicians record and release a song for every day of a given month. Maguire completed that challenge in May, posting the results in a compilation album entitled Watchtower, which was released at the month’s end. Watchtower is another strong indicator of the songwriter’s ability to pen thoughtful lyrics and a strong hook. Only seven of the 30 songs—exempting a two-second snippet of near-silence with the title “Day Off” from the grand total—eclipse the 100-second mark. The record adheres to a warped micro-pop template not all that dissimilar from the one that drove the early work of the much-missed NYC indie-rock act LVL UP.

Maguire ropes in collaborators across Watchtower, enlisting Daylight Savings‘ Quinn Mattsson and Camden Powell as co-writers on “The Grind,” and Muscle Memory‘s Caide Jackson as a co-writer on “Long Way Down.” Maguire also uses the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Bach as springboards for inspiration on “My Favorite Things” and “Wohl Mir Daß Ich Jesum Habe,” respectively. It’s a fascinating representation of influences and collaborators, speaking to the variety of the artistic well Maguire’s drawing from. And, for as scattershot as the “mostly scuffed” audio quality for Watchtower is (many of the songs are mixed and/or recorded at extremely low volumes), the album’s wide-ranging musical versatility effectively contextualizes its preceding work, Nighthawks.

I’ve extolled the potency and reliable excellence of Maguire’s work on Tone Madison before, but Nighthawks still managed to blindside me. Released in mid-April, the album consists of nine stunning solo piano songs—none of which surpass the two minute and 20 second mark—that hearken back to Closing Time-era Tom Waits. It’s a staggering accomplishment in a compact package, immediately standing out as one of Maguire’s most absorbing works. “Waiting On Something Good” opens the album with a flavorful piano figure that evokes gospel, blues, and Americana all at once, before Maguire’s trademark vocals kick in to deliver the introductory stanza: “Waiting on the soldiers / To melt their arms into ploughs / Waiting on the grocers / To free the caged-up flour / Waiting on the heads-of-state / To pull up in a hearse / Waiting for the world / To stop spinning in reverse.”

“Waiting on something good / Something good / I’m waiting / Still waiting / Waiting on something good,” goes the chorus, as the music repeats a descending pattern to underscore the narrative collapse the protagonist is fighting against. It’s simple, effective, and comes from a place that feels honest, lending even more impact to a two-minute gut-punch. “Waiting On Something Good” sets an exceptionally high standard that the remainder of Nighthawks lives up to with no shortage of casual panache. For all of the album’s modesty and minimalism, Maguire makes the absolute most of the tools at his disposal, crafting something that’s both immediately striking and leaves enough of a mark to linger long after its closing notes.

“Take cover / They’re shooting again,” Maguire sings at the start of the melancholic 90-second album highlight “Keep Holding On,” emphasizing a fragility that informs much of the album’s lyrics. “Find your brother / Make a pillow fort and then / Try to escape / To pretend,” croons Maguire to close the track’s first verse, before locking into a brief staccato chorus that ranks among the best pieces of music I’ve heard from any artist this year, Madison-based or otherwise.

Across the album’s 14 and a half minutes, Maguire uncorks a series of quiet grace notes that pack a deceptively weighty punch. On the penultimate “Speedrunning,” Maguire’s voice takes on a weary, road-worn effect as he leans into the chorus: “Stop speedrunning / The game of life / Speedrunning / Out of time,” once again implicitly suggesting an inevitable collapse and a keen awareness of the frailty inherent to impermanence. And the unexpected interpolation of Joplin’s “The Maple Leaf Rag” at the track’s ending is an exceedingly sardonic wink that adds just the right amount of levity to the proceedings.

By the time “Small Melody” provides Nighthawks with an appropriately subdued finale, Maguire has staked a legitimate claim to be regarded as one of Madison’s premier singer-songwriters. In that regard, Watchtower feels akin to a victory lap. It’s a reverse-engineering process of Maguire’s songwriting tendencies that reveals a genuine, instinctual gift for the form. Watchtower is about as bare-bones as it gets, with the vast majority of the album coming across as early-stages demos, yet there is a staggering potentiality embedded into nearly every track; it’s hard to grow flowers out of a poisoned bed, but there’s a manageable path to their blooming from a well-tended soil. And even with that caveat, songs like the contemplative, slow-burning “Lost And Found” come across as resoundingly complete.   

To sweeten the deal, each album, in keeping with Maguire’s past work, can be downloaded from The Stoplights’ Bandcamp at a name-your-price rate. Both Nighthawks and Watchtower are teeming with exceptional work, constituting a groundswell of artistry that deserves to be added to as many listeners’ collections as possible.