There is a way of being fine that isn't the same as being untroubled, and this record spends nearly five minutes demonstrating the difference. The tempo is quick and the beat never lets go of the body, yet the singing refuses to hurry — a calm, conversational voice talking evenly above a skip the ear can't put down. The joy is delegated to machines and guitars; the person inside the song simply matches its pace. What's left standing is someone keeping company with his own cheerfulness rather than being lifted by it.

The playing gives the brightness away as hand-made: notes lean across the drum machine's strict grid instead of landing on it, a lilt that makes the cheer feel chosen rather than programmed. When the chorus opens, the weather stops being one man's — answering voices stack in behind him, and lightness becomes a group activity. The ending is the most honest part: the words dissolve into wordless singing, the two-chord vamp circles on, and everything runs down into quiet. Whatever the song had to say, it said it by moving, and it stopped only when the movement was done.