A record called ‘Play Nice’ is already smirking at the listener. Nobody who titles an album that way has any intention of following the instruction. Politeness is basically a dare to Mean Jolene, the Austin band built around Jolie Cota Flink’s voice and writing, and across eight songs they keep ducking it: sometimes snarling, sometimes winking, sometimes sounding a lot more bruised than that. Cota Flink sings, writes every song, and produces the whole thing, and you can hear that one person is steering. It gives the album a focus you don’t often get from records made by committee. Her voice is the star. In the space of a verse she can sound amused, hurt, or just totally unimpressed, and she’s good at knowing when to go big and when to say a line plainly and let it hang there.
The band sounds like they’ve actually spent time in a room together. Ali Ditto on rhythm guitar and Maud Morgan on bass keep things solid without getting stiff, and their backing vocals make the choruses feel like a shout-along instead of a neat harmony. Adam Sharp’s drumming is steady and no-nonsense, and it’s always in service of the song. Then there are the two lead guitarists, Steven Garcia and Jen Brown. Splitting those duties between two players is a bold choice, and it pays off in the way solos and counter-lines trade places, answering each other like friends finishing sentences, or occasionally interrupting them.
“Private Plane” opens the record at a brisk clip and its duration is a statement of intent. The song gets in, makes its point, and leaves before anyone can ask for a refund. It sets the temperature for what follows: confident, a little cheeky, unwilling to explain itself. “On A Good Day” picks up from there with a looser stride, and the title carries a sly qualifier, since the whole phrase implies plenty of days that were not good. That sort of double meaning runs through the album like a seam.
Then the mood shifts. “Sobriety” sits near the front of the record and carries a different weight, the sound of a band slowing down long enough to look at something directly. Cota Flink’s phrasing gets more careful here, almost conversational, and the guitars pull back to leave her room. It is the first sign that ‘Play Nice’ has more on its mind than attitude. “Last Place” and “Dead To Me” follow with a pair of songs whose titles read like verdicts, and both deliver on that promise. Few things in rock are as satisfying as a kiss-off delivered with total composure, and “Dead To Me” understands that the coldest line is often the quietest one.
“Can’t Save Face” works as the pivot, a song about the humiliations everyone pretends not to remember and everyone secretly does. The guitars lean rueful, the chorus gives the backing vocalists their moment, and the whole thing lands somewhere between a laugh and a wince. That’s a hard spot to hit, and the band makes it look easy. The last two tracks are where Mean Jolene stretch. “Disco Noir” is the most intriguing title on the record and plays like a curveball in the best sense, a smoky, nocturnal detour that lets the band show it can wander beyond a single mood without losing the thread. The album ends with “Waltz Song,” in three-quarter time, which is both the obvious move and the right one. After all the swagger and sidelong glances, a slow dance makes a softer landing than a final slam would.
The production deserves its own mention. The album was recorded and mixed at Estuary Recording Studio by John Michael Landon and mastered at Rare Ear by Max Lorenzen. It sounds live, like everyone’s in the same room. The guitars aren’t crowded, the bass and drums are strong without taking over, and the vocals are clean but not overly polished. It doesn’t sound built for streaming.
Eight songs is a modest count, and some listeners will wish for a few more. That’s a fair complaint, but it’s also a compliment. A record this lean has no filler to apologize for, and it ends while you’re still hungry. ‘Play Nice’ is the work of a band that knows who it is, led by a writer with a sharp tongue and a softer heart than she lets on. Anyone expecting good manners will be disappointed. Everyone else is in for a very good time.
Releases November 18, 2026
Learn more links:
Mean Jolene
Bandcamp
YouTube
Instagram
Facebook
