ICEAGE: You're Nothing

Alternative rock, indie rock, rock and roll-- everyone knows it's sissy and lame now, so it's great to hear a band attempt what ICEAGE attempts on "You're Nothing," i.e. aggressive, high-energy guitar music, with screaming and feedback and noise and short, punchy tracks.

The problem for me here, then, is in the execution.  Simply put, there's hardly a hook to be found.  I don't mind this too much on the songs that attempt chaos (though even then, the band seems to be using chaos as a thing in itself, and not as a thing that can articulate, oh, cool songwriting ideas).  My beef is mostly with the songs that slow down and attempt something "arty."  They just don't work.  The guitar playing is not interesting enough, the singer is not dynamic enough, the rhythm section is mired in punk rock cliches.  At some points, the band even sounds TIRED, which is NEVER good for a hardcore-ish album.

But it's not an awful album, no.  I'll take a hundred copies of this record over whatever New Order ripoff shit money-grubbing useless tool band is playing on your local indie rock station.  Still, one wishes the album had more songs like its pretty amazing title track, which grabs hold of your attention and throttles it, with somehow increasing fury, for two minutes.  "YOU'RE NUUTTTTTHINGGGG"... That's a tremendous hook.  That's some Ian MacKaye shit.  That's what ICEAGE needs to do more.

The Walkmen: You & Me

Sometimes I put this record on and I think, "I wish every record sounded just like this.  You know, with a nice soft rumbling foundation of nostalgic organ, reverbed guitar, and deep percussive grooves.  And a guy yelling awesome lyrics on top."

And sometimes I think, a second later, "No no no.  There can only be one."

Fucked Up: Glass Boys

"Glass Boys" is a serious record made by a band that is doing exactly what they want to do.  As a 40-minute long reflection on aging, punk ethics, and the business of rock and roll, it has to count as a major success.  You'll find more quotable lyrics and potent observations in any one song here-- particularly if you select one written by Mike Haliechuk, the band's guitarist, who seems to me a far more efficient wordsmith than the occasionally verbose Damian Abraham, the band's singer-- than in the entire discography of, say, Green Day.  The arrangements are fittingly fleshed out and frequently, err, pretty sad.  There's a sense when listening to "Glass Boys" that it will be the band's swan song.

Which is a shame, because while "Glass Boys" is philosophically profound, it doesn't really "rock."  And if you ask me, the thing Fucked Up does best-- as demonstrated by their masterpiece, "Hidden World"-- is rock.  Early Fucked Up songs were smart, too, but they were also fun.  Fun as hell!  Is the political content of "Crusades" just a little more obvious than the political content of "Warm Change"?  Sure.  But one song feels alive, free, wild... and the other feels like a mechanism for distributing political content.

This brings me to the question that I think Fucked Up themselves discuss in "Glass Boys": is punk music even a reliable way to communicate complex ideas?  As time goes by, and nothing changes, I increasingly think, "No... It is not."  Because punk music is distorted.  Because punk music makes you sing and dance.  Because punk music is fun.  And because fast tempos often demand that lyrics be garbled.  And because garbled lyrics of the complex-ish kind often require very simplistic melodies to convey them.  Very simplistic melodies that are, in turn, not much fun to listen to after a while.

The melodies on "Glass Boys" are better than those on "David Comes to Life," I think, but they still feel restrictive, lame.  They wear you out.  Damian Abraham is a good frontman when, like his band, he has space to breathe, as on all of "Hidden World" and most of "The Chemistry of Common Life."  Here, he just sounds kind of... neutered.  It doesn't help when the production is dense like a mattress of rock... The only things the listener is allowed to pick out of the mix of "Glass Boys" are the things which the producers have decided to float to the top occasionally-- a stray guitar line, drum beat, or Damian.

All of which is to say I admire "Glass Boys," and I think it could be a classic album, but not because it is rocking or fun or even very good, musically speaking.  Which could mean it's an "anti-classic," or something.