Don’t let the title fool you: Hoogenboom’s Good For Nothing (A Spiraling Blackout Montage) is a resplendent collection of bold, beatific melodies cut with Brandon Hoogenboom’s deeply felt, introspective songwriting. The project’s debut album is a showcase for Brandon’s talents when it comes to crafting songs you can live within—rich with atmospherics without skimping on an irresistible tunefulness. These nine songs find Brandon looking at his journeys as a musician and a human being on this rock we call Earth, and they happen to chart an exciting future for Hoogenboom as a whole, too.

Good For Nothing marks the dawning of a new era for Brandon after a decade-plus of making music professionally as part of previous band. The California-based singer and songwriter’s group took off after building word of mouth through busking gigs in Australia, but after the group’s sudden dissolution he decamped back to his home state, assessing the way forward. “I started re-living my life, questioning if I should continue to play and write music,” he recalls. “I was trying to figure out where I should be in life.”

Eventually, Brandon decided to strike out on his own with a new project bearing his last name. Work on Good For Nothing began last winter, with his secured studio space alongside producer Stefan Mac as the perfect motivation for creative focus. “It was a huge benefit to lock myself in a room and hunker down on this thing,” he explains, and save for a few songs that predate the record’s existence, the music came to Brandon as easily as water flowing from a tap.

The nine songs collected on Good For Nothing bear the mark of classic indie and folk sounds from the last twenty years. The bright melodies and warm instrumentation are undercut with Brandon’s reflective lyricism, which finds him ruminating on a dark period in his life that the album title gestures towards.

“I had a tendency to take things too far in an attempt to cope with what felt like the breakup of a tight-knit family,” he explains while discussing the title’s meaning. “A lot of this album is me taking the time to address my issues inside and outside of the band, and it’s taken a decade for me to really understand that period of my life and be able to move on. This is me learning how much I need to take the reins of my own life and my own story.”

Throughout Good For Nothing, Brandon zooms in on the highs and lows of friendships and relationships in general, unafraid to explore life’s uncomfortable corners. “Sunday Morning” soars with gorgeous harmonies and an oceanic swell to its foundation, expressing a wish to seize every waking moment as if it were the most cherished memory; the driving beat of “Skipping Town,” meanwhile, was inspired by an old bandmate who suddenly disappeared without warning. “It was a really strange scenario,” Brandon recalls. “He skipped town, and the project was over. But songs like these are a way for me to process what I went through.”

The darkly shaded swoons of “Shame on Us” provide perfect accompaniment to Brandon’s musings on the gray areas of public discourse, while the wide-open “Damn Good” finds him wrapping his arms around life’s endless possibilities. “After spending most of my life feeling incredibly insecure, I finally found confidence in myself,” he states while discussing the song’s themes. “I let go of the pressure to conform to what I felt like the world was telling me to be and found the joy in embracing who I am—even if that person can seem a little off-kilter to others.”

Indeed, Good For Nothing is the result of Brandon putting his honest self forward artistically and personally, all the while exercising his muscle for writing gorgeous, full-bodied songs that sound both timeless and immediate. “A lot of emotion went into these songs,” he says while talking about what the album means to him. “This is the first collection of recorded music that I’m really proud of, and it feels like it’s just the beginning—but every day I’m pushing myself and my art forward, too.”