Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Pennywise album review

Reason to Dis(believe)

April 11th, 2008

Pennywise - Reason to Believe (Myspace Records, 2008)Pennywise’s twelfth album and first release of any kind in three years fell into the public’s hands on March 25th in a way that is becoming more and more popular in this age of digital wisdom and battles with big-name record companies. Reason to Believe was available to any man, woman and child the world around for the trifling price of being their friend on MySpace. That’s right, for the first two weeks after its release, fans could legally download free digital copies. Old-fashioned types could also find hard copies of the album in stores, but those, unfortunately, were not free.

The fact that the album was released for no cost at all seemed to produce more of a buzz than the actual music itself, proving that everyone loves to get free things no matter what they may be. But Reason to Believe, while aggressive, politically driven and energetic, is not entirely relevant on the Southern California skater punk scene. Pennywise have slowed down and mellowed out in a way that is inevitable after playing power chord-driven punk music for more than 20 years.

This is not to say that Reason to Believe isn’t a “good” album — but many songs on the album happen to sound very similar to each other, very quickly. The driving force and dynamic guitars behind “One Reason” give the listener a feeling of power over a worthy cause, but upon closer inspection, the song appears to be merely about fighting with a manipulative girlfriend: “Give me one reason for stopping your fall/Give me one reason to answer your call/ Give me one reason why I should care at all.” Something that had so much potential fell on its face by allowing itself to be completely shallow and inane.

That’s a shame, because the album’s cover has such deep and insightful imagery. With five symbols of peace and harmony along with the Pennywise logo inside a silhouette of a human head, the cover suggests that this album will offer the listener a “Reason to Believe” that the world has a chance. To place a shallow breakup song so close to the beginning of the record was a poor choice in my opinion and basically shatters the ideals the artwork had set up the listener for.

However, the radio-friendly “The Western World,” which speaks of the “celluloid boys and video girls,” allows the listener to feel at least slightly political while rocking out hardcore. The song expresses the depressing idea that “there’s nothing left worth fighting for/in the western world.” This doomsday message is cleverly disguised by the upbeat melody and non-stop avalanche of power that spews forth from the lead guitar. But is Pennywise softening with age and throwing in the towel? It may appear so.

While the band tried to redeem themselves from the shallow messages of the first few songs of the album with political pieces such as “The Western World” and “Affliction,” they do not give the listener any kind of glimmer of hope or even a soap box to stand on. They merely point out that the current political administration is not doing all it can for its people. But instead of rallying the troops to fight back as punk rockers are often wont to do, they choose to stand in the corner and sulk about how hard their lives are now that they are aging, former punk-rock-sort-of-stars who can’t play as fast as they used to.

Final Grade: C+

The Raconteurs album review

The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely (Warner Bros., 2008)Many of the so-called “super groups” are less than fantastic and have a tendency to merely bank off of their successful past and don’t feel the need to create actual works of worth. The Raconteurs do not fit into this category as is evident with their second album, Consolers of the Lonely which was released on March 25th. Jack White and his comrades are able to create music that is wholly unique from anything that they created and played in their other more famous bands.

Consolers of the Lonely is an audio trip for the listener. Immersed within the tracks are the voices of the performers, and what I assume to be their friends, talking, laughing, joking and making notes as to how the track will sound in final publication. While this is not a new tactic in making a record feel more “real,” if is definitely effective in reassuring the listener that these musicians are real people who just want to make a bunch of good songs together. The fact that they are individually famous has nothing to do with what they are doing when they are together.

It is easy for the listener to get lost in these tracks and fade out of the real world into another dimension built on heavy-handed piano chords, raging and squelching guitars and Jack White’s unmistakable whine. The harmonies of “You Don’t Understand Me” create such an ambiance of sadness in the listener’s ear that the pain is actually tangible. It is easy to feel the desperation in White’s voice when he says that “there’s got to be a better way to do what we do.” While it really is just another love song, it is possible that this is the most genuine one I’ve heard in awhile. “You Don’t Understand Me” goes through the battle that so many go through once they realize that their mate just doesn’t get it.

It is so easy in this age of technology for a band to whip out an album, throw down the vocals, double-, triple-, or quadruple-track everything to make it sound like a bunch of people are involved and release utter rubbish to the public. This album isn’t like that. Each song has intricate interwoven pieces and a story of their own. Every time you listen to a song you hear something new and different. This is not an album that is easily overplayed. Every song finds a way to hold the listener’s interest in a different way with every spin, almost as if it were getting better with age.

The Raconteurs have gone out on a limb by trying something new in the name of experimental rock. The intermittent trumpet and the use of guitar as almost a percussion instrument bring elements of jazz and funk into tracks like “The Switch and the Spur.” In many ways, this is a risky record due to unusual instrumentation, the complexity of the musical arrangements, intelligence in both music and lyrics and the mixture of different styles in order to create something wholly unique — but somehow The Raconteurs pull it off.

Consolers of the Lonely is unique, dynamic and real in ways that the vast majority of today’s popular music could never be. It’s good to hear a band enjoy what they do for once.

Final Grade: A