Album Review: Post-Nothing

This was an album that I picked up mostly because I had heard of the band without having ever actually heard them. And I thought the album cover looked pretty cool, like all the other black and white pictures on this blog. I really was expecting more of an indie rock subtly-gilding-roses Post-Nothing but was pretty pleased to have that expectation turned right on its head. These guys really wail out their choruses, which I've heard before from bands that sound like what I want to call alt-punk-pop, but these guys nail it for me. Sincerely wailed vocals over severely down picked and amplified chords work to produce something that is familiar but also somewhat endearing. The way they sing about hating girls, young guys leaving town, and rocking out, these are all familiar motifs in rock and roll. I guess if I would have one complaint is that they seem to stay fairly in the box with their sound, structure and lyrics. It's not like they don't do any of it well, but I'm not sure their pushing anything or doing anything provocative. A couple of times I kind of wondered if this was really just a creed side band, which sounds pretty bad on the outside, but a well produced, bread and butter, get your common rock tropes here album is pretty much what creed made, and in some ways what the Japandroids are doing. Now on some tracks they do really dig into grooves and let loose on some stuff that is probably too left of center to really fit the whole creed comparison, and when they do that I them best.  I would recommend checking out the whole album as its pretty short light and fun, but the tracks Young Hearts Spark Fire, Wet Hair, and Heart Sweats really made me feel the most energetic and happy listening to them. In a popular video on the power of music, Oliver Sacks quotes Emmanuel Kant as calling music the "quickening art" and although this music is sometimes slowed by how much it plays into common tropes, it's sincerity and lightness really make it a fun and enlivening listen. Try it!

The Photo Atlas, Bruce Springsteen and the Great American Teenage Myth

The Photo Atlas taps into the motifs of what I call the Great American Teenage Myth in the lyrics of "Dress Code". We have kids hopping into a car, hitting the interstate and driving fast even though they won't make it, which is significant not only because its a scene that might as well have been sung by Bruce Springsteen (The first three lines of Born to Run), but because it was sung by guys who grew up in Colorado, not New Jersey, and yet share the same basic events of driving fast and reckless down a highway towards a place they know they won't reach.  There is even a shared wailing of "woah oh", and although it represents the ecstatic emotion of being briefly wild, uninhibited and free in one song, and perhaps a cry of pain from unrequited love in another, both emotions are part of the same event. Because what is the physical scene of the Great American Teenage Myth but running away from home and having to come back? Starting as the little child that packs a couple of peanut butter sandwiches and his stuffed tiger to get away from a hegemonic mom, how much have we progressed to the rebellious teen that just wants to run away and live his dreams. And there in lies not only the image of running but also the sense that The Great American Teenage Myth is a chase of something that has only become more solidified since childhood. A yearning of something that has become increasingly intense, and less and less bearable to not act on. 

But the myth is not satisfied. Calvin returns home and Bruce doesn't know when his dream is going to be fulfilled but he hopes one day. And there is the emotional underpinning of the shared story. It's a time of hope and dreams, but also of denial, impotence and inability. The balance of those emotions, and the knowledge that one has to return back to a cage of home is what creates the tension and ultimately the ecstasy of the brief escape or the grief of returning unfulfilled.

All this tied in with images of cars, the open road, and addressing a romantic interest builds up to create a common story that we can enjoying by nodding and thinking 'Yeah, I get that' when we hear someone else say it. 

Anyway, here's The Photo Atlas's new song "Dress Code" off of their new album Stuck in a Honeytrap. It's fun, angsty, unrequited, and comforts me with a feeling of warm nostalgia for our shared story. 

Song of the Week: Catalina

Catalina - The Descendants - Milo Goes to College

The Descendants are punk. It's simple, quick, has plenty of attitude but never sacrifices having fun. That being said I really like it because although I respect how "punk" it is to me it sounds like hairy rock and roll to me, and absolutely I love it. It has angst, rhythm, speed, rebellion all things I associate with rock and roll, and love in this song. From a more technical standpoint I love their rhythm section and how they put their bass so far forward in the mix, it just gives the sound a fullness and hairiness that goes well with the scratchy guitars.

Song Here

Midnight Special: Six Pack

Six Pack - Black Flag - Damaged

A good friend of mine first showed me Black Flag's album Damaged and this was the first song off that album to stick with me, most likely because of its opening bass line. To me Henry Rollins seems like an unnecessarily angry man, and a really poor comedian (Right here. Being angry and loud doesn't make you funny, it makes you an asshole.) but I do like some of his aggression and delivery. All in all well worth the two and half minutes.


Song: Here