Kris Racer
The Red & The Black, Friday, October 12

KRIS RACER wants 2007 to be his banner year. As former frontman for Ohio pop-punkers Tagline, Kris Racer (AKA Kris Narunatvanich, but who wants to responsible for that spellcheck?) came to Chicago and left the rest of the band behind, opting to unplug and become an acoustic, solo act. But staying true to his punkier roots, Kris Racer is more Mike Ness than open mic. Racer’s new EP, ... Has a Banner Year, continues to explore the themes of adolescence redux he covered on his debut, Time Spent on Airplanes. It’s that time you reach in your mid-20s when you’re still not sure what you’re exactly supposed to do with your life; it’s that stage in the game when you’re caught thinking about whether jobs should turn into careers or if girlfriends should become wives.

And even though most of the songs on Banner Year seem to be written about a day at the office or a girl actually aren’t ... Racer says it’s usually vice versa—which either finds our narrator married to his job (and wants out of the relationship), or his current amour is, well, just another day at the of ice.

Either way, even Zach Braff couldn’t metaphorically draw out his third-life crisis the way Racer does. [krisracer.com]