A Warmth You Can't Quite Explain

There are albums you admire and albums you return to, and Are We There Yet? — GrooveLily's 2003 studio release — sits firmly in the second category. Ask fans which record they'd press into a stranger's hands first, and this one comes up again and again. It has a particular warmth, a sense of a band fully at home in their own genre-blend, and songwriting that rewards repeat listening in the way the best story-songs always do.

2003year Are We There Yet? was released
1994year the band began, as The Valerie Vigoda Band

By 2003, the trio — Valerie Vigoda on electric violin and vocals, Brendan Milburn on keyboards and vocals, Gene Lewin on drums and vocals — had been refining their sound for nearly a decade, having started out as The Valerie Vigoda Band back in 1994. That road-tested quality shows. Are We There Yet? doesn't sound like a group still discovering what they are; it sounds like one that knows exactly where it wants to go and is thoroughly enjoying the drive.

Stack of vinyl records beside a turntable in warm, low light
Close-up of an electric violin resting under warm amber stage light, effects pedals softly out of focus.

What Makes It Stick

The record showcases the elements that have always made GrooveLily compelling: Vigoda's electric violin doing things the instrument has no business doing — cutting through a mix like a lead guitar, then pulling back into something achingly tender — alongside Milburn's melodically generous keyboard work and Lewin's drumming that swings without ever losing the rock edge. All three sing, and the interplay of those voices is one of the album's quiet pleasures.

Milburn and Vigoda's songwriting here leans into what they do best: finding the emotional architecture inside an everyday situation, building a lyric that feels both specific and universal. These are songs about real-feeling people in real-feeling moments — the kind of story-song approach that also fuelled the theatrical work that brought GrooveLily wider recognition. You can hear the spirit of Striking 12 in the DNA of this album.

“All three sing, and the interplay of those voices is one of the album's quiet pleasures.”

The Album That Travels Well

Are We There Yet? is the perfect entry point for someone new to GrooveLily — concise, inviting, immediately likeable — but it also has enough depth to stay interesting long after you've moved through the rest of the catalogue. It is, in the best possible sense, a road-trip record: the kind you put on when you're going somewhere and you want the journey to feel like it means something.

For a band that has always loved a story with a destination, it's fitting that this one feels like it's already arrived.

The story, in brief

  1. 1994band founded as The Valerie Vigoda Band
  2. 2003Are We There Yet? released
  3. post-2003theatrical work grows, building on Striking 12 (first staged in 2002)

GrooveLily is an unofficial fan tribute. We have no affiliation with the band, their management, or any label.