Sound Salvation Army

A friendly reminder from your favourite u-loving neighbours from the north: It’s Canada Day. For five more minutes! Hooray!

I used to love Canada Day when I was a kid. Because it meant that somewhere, somebody would be serving vanilla cupcakes with white frosting and red and white sprinkles. Today, I was sadly without sprinkles. Unless you count the rain, which meant very sad fireworks. But I do have a six-pack of Sleeman’s in the fridge and an iTunes playlist filled with songs that contain a bunch of Canadian references Americans won’t get. That’s gotta count for something.

We’re so weird up here with our snow, our maple syrup, our free health care and our great, unknown musicians. We have more amazing musical acts nobody’s ever heard of than you can shake a stick at! I’m both resentful and resigned to that fact. Like, it’s AWESOME and you don’t know what you’re missing, you ignorant buffoons who think of Canada and think of Nickelback and Anne Murray and Celine Dion! On the other hand, get away from my favourite bands, America! Get your own! KnowwhatImean?

It’s rare that I just go buy an actual physical album without worrying if it will be any good. Rarer still is the purchase of a TRIPLE album without worrying if it will be any good. Who the heck even MAKES a triple album nowadays? Probably the same guy who makes a concept album about being a teenage rocker in the Maritimes. Probably the same guy who rhymes Saskatchewan with Catchin’ On. Probably the same guy who falls asleep with the TV on because at 3 a.m. they play O Canada. Probably the same guy who owes a lot of his recognizance to the fact that Canadian store Zellers used his song in a commercial. Probably the same guy who writes a song about loving a town (Halifax) with the same ferociousness that he hates another (Kelowna).

Joel Plaskett is the PERFECT example of a guy who is incredibly popular in Canada, yet will probably never become a HUGE success in the U.S. And I’m sure he’s fine with that, just as I am sure many people don’t understand why he’d be fine with that. Sometimes, it’s enough that your countrymen and women love you.

Hell, I could be wrong about that, though. Because other times, it’s nice to have Sir Paul McCartney hand pick you to open his only Canadian show on July 11 in Nova Scotia. It’s fitting, since to me, Plaskett’s music has always felt like hallowed middle ground between the seedier side of the Beatles and the friendlier side of the Stones. Macca can’t go wrong to have an intensely local artist with cross-country appeal open his show.

Plaskett has always stayed true to his roots. He relentlessly tours the country, but calls Nova Scotia home. His shows sell out everywhere (except maybe Kelowna) because he just keeps throwing out pop songs that are both extraordinarily catchy and deeply personal. In short, he does exactly what all great artists should do: Makes everybody who listens to his music feel like he wrote the song just for them.

Down at the Khyber is an album full of straight ahead rock and roll that is perfect to listen to if you happen to be driving anywhere in Canada. And not just because Plaskett liberally sprinkles his songs with references to cities across the country. The title track has Plaskett in Edmonton, longing for home and the Musquodoboit Harbour. Meanwhile, the tune It’s Catching On brilliantly rhymes the title with Saskatchewan, Light of the Moon relates the touring artist’s feeling that “this country’s a coalmine and I’m a canary” and tells of the desire to “flirt with the waitress in Sault Ste. Marie.” And what to say about True Patriot Love? Who among us (Canadians) hasn’t fallen asleep with the TV on, only to wake up to the CBC’s end of programming music — the national anthem. Oh, Canada! True patriot love, and all that jazz.

Lest you think all Joel Plaskett is good for is referencing Canadianisms, there is Through and Through and Through. In a world that loves singles, he is endlessly experimenting with the album format and Three is probably his craziest venture yet. It’s three albums, each with nine songs apiece, many with one word repeated three times as the title. Three is a magic album and Through and Through and Through is the first single that reminds us that “good things come in threes.”

I think you should help make it THE JAM of this summer because the imagery? It’s beautiful, thanks for asking. If anybody ever wrote the lyrics “I’m the Berlin Wall, I’m a communist/You’re a wrecking ball in a summer dress” for me, I’d be hopelessly devoted. I love the harsh horns and the lazy licks and its lyrics are achingly sweet and tasty, like a melted Freezie. The female vocals featured on Three are a welcome addition that allow Plaskett to ease up on his falsetto, but his witty lyrics and hooky pop sensibilities are still there. Gosh, he’s so great! All I want right now is a balcony or a back porch so I can laze around and listen to this slice of summer on repeat.

What’s that? You want a few MORE songs about Canadian cities by a couple of my favourite Canadian bands? Who am I to protest?

Hello City is from the Barenaked Ladies’ first album Gordon. Pat and I have both said that we would unironically include Gordon in our top 10 desert island records. It’s fucking awesome, both for the novelty songs the Ladies were peddling (the sweet and funny Be My Yoko Ono, the painful truth of Grade 9 and the very pointed New Kid On the Block), the more serious and wistful laments (Wrap Your Arms Around Me, What a Good Boy and the Flag) and stuff that sits somewhere in the middle (like Enid, Brian Wilson and Hello City).

Hello City is about Halifax. I don’t know why I like songs about Halifax so much, maybe because I’ve never been there, but long to go. Before I moved to Ontario, I had a really specific idea of what it would be like to live here. Like I’d feel more Canadian somehow. I remember hearing postal codes from Ontario at the end of TV shows I’d watch as a kid. I used to think those that started with N and M were so exotic. Much better than boring ol’ S. Now that I’m here, I feel a pull to head even further East because that’s clearly where the magic happens.

Anyway, I love Hello City both for its references to Halifax and its musicality. BNL are much more than a gimmick band with one hit. They’re accomplished musicians and vocalists. Somebody from America once asked me how embarrassed I was that the Barenaked Ladies were from Canada. After I stopped choking to death, I was all “What the what?” Why would I ever be embarrassed of the Ladies? It’s not my fault America turned them into a one-hit wonder. One Week isn’t TERRIBLE, but if you ask me, Stunt is where it all starts going wrong, mostly because other people found out about them. See? I jealously guard my favourites. I should’ve stayed a little closer, I guess, because after Steven Page left the band, I don’t know if they’ll ever be the same. I miss their earlier music, which you can buy on iTunes and Amazon.

On the other end of this equation is The Parkas. On the edge of being known beyond their southern Ontario beginnings (and Emmet’s blog), they are good. Really, really good. Their lyrics are clever, their song titles are witty, their music is dirty, country/rock-tinged fun and you should buy their albums. I’m partial to their song My Life of Crime from the album Now This is Fighting (on sale now at Endearing Records), because it is full of references to Guelph. Yep. The Parkas are good little Royal City rock and rollers who name check Goldie Mill, the Speed River AND St. George’s Square. But the lyrics are only part of the reason I love it. Right at the heart of the song, there’s this sparse bit populated by just a lonely bassline and that urgent, growling vocal. The moment is broken by a guitar riff straight off the Dazed and Confused soundtrack. The song slowly builds back up into a whirling, sorrowful dirge that laments their lack of funds and wasted ambition.

The Parkas are releasing their third full-length album later this month in Toronto. If you’re in the T dot on Saturday, July 25th, head down to the Silver Dollar and check out The Parkas play a raucous show with Whitebelt Octopus. Get it while you can. From the latest state of the nation on their website, it sounds like they might be getting ready to take an extended break.

Tanis entries Barenaked Ladies, Canada Day, Canadian content, Guelph, Joel Plaskett, Saskatchewan, The Parkas

Great performance alert!

Every Hillside Festival fan in this city should head out to the Guelph Little Theatre Saturday, where Mark Seymour (Hunters and Collectors) will be performing with Royal City musical royalty Sue Smith, one of the co-founders of Guelph’s famous Hillside Festival.

It’s a star-studded lineup that also includes Jeff Bird (Cowboy Junkies), Nick Craine (Black Cabbage) and Marta Pacek from Melbourne. They’re all accomplished folkies who make beautiful music.

Seymour kind of reminds me of an Australian Jim Cuddy. He’s an acclaimed singer and songwriter and he has an earthy, lived in voice that’s capable of raw tenderness. He could sing the phonebook and I’d be swaying lightly, holding a lighter aloft. Especially on one of his older songs, Mississauga. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Mississauga, but very few people compose songs about it without adding the word Goddam. And I love Throw Your Arms Around Me, from his new release, Closest Living Thing.

Sue Smith’s slinky I Need a Band and a Tango Partner from her album I’m So has a bunch of funky, rolling piano bits and hot guitar licks that set off her bluesy voice just… so. It’s perfect for listening to on a hot night with a cold beer.

Do yourself a favour and snap up some early tickets for this show (Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.) They’re $20 in advance at Ground Floor Music on Quebec St., $25 at the door. Or if you want tickets and you’re from out of town, contact one of my favourite music promoters in the city, Lil Milanovich at milanovichlil@hotmail.com and she’ll set you up.

You can buy the music of Sue Smith and Mark Seymour on Maple Music. And iTunes, of course.

Tanis entries Guelph, Hillside Festival, live music, Mark Seymour, Sue Smith

I’ve never really been a huge fan of so-called “positive hardcore” or the seemingly growing trend of punk bands that focus on a “posi” message. Call me cynical, say I have a dour world-view, but I find music inspiring enough without cloying lyrical treatises. Like Christian punk, “posi” bands generally seem to rely on a pastiche of trite lyrical tropes that feel more like posturing than anything and almost never succeed in saying something new.

Having started out on a severely non-posi bent, lets turn things around. There’s a lot of really good things happening on Anchor Down’s new EP, Steel To Dust. The sophisticated songwriting on this album should easily position them as the standout act on their record label, the universally-posi Solidarity Recordings.

The arrangements are severely melodic, bringing to mind the work of pop-punk luminaries like Jawbreaker or Dillinger Four and new-school heroes like the Lawrence Arms. They’re varied and clever enough to constantly demand your attention, but without having to rely on neck-snapping tempo changes like A Wilhelm Scream or the gothic machinations of Alkaline Trio. The quartet boasts two seriously capable guitar players that have crafted some engaging tunes with sharp hooks, all buoyed by some muscular riffing.

Lyrically, however, things are not quite as strong. Don’t get me wrong — they do a fairly marvelous job of saying something outside of what one might expect in the posi-core genre. There is a fair amount of genuine self-reflection and insight contained within, which is good. But there are also occasional missteps where the words just don’t quite seem to add up (like in “Bromancing The Stone,” featuring a somewhat-clumsy attempt to craft something new out of the old “skeletons in my closet” metaphor). “World War I” particularly comes not only dangerously close to the more-predictable trappings of posi-core bands, but some of the lyrics and phrasing are also clearly cribbed quite heavily from the Gaslight Anthem’s early releases. It feels the least organic of the half-dozen songs here and most starkly displays some of their songwriting influences.

As you may have read earlier in this site’s history Solidarity is a brand new label started up by an extremely nice and decent fellow who clearly has a knack for discovering extremely talented young bands that are really starting to find their sound and set themselves apart. Anchor Down is a hell of a find and the two should have a long, prosperous relationship.

Solidarity has got itself an actual website for purchasing records! Excellent! You can also find their stuff at several other distros. It’s been released on CD and digital, as well as good ol’ iTunes.

But seriously, young punk bands, can we cut it out with the ‘anchor’ band names already? Anchor, Anchor Down, Anchor Arms, Anchor Set, Anchors Away…its a bit exhausting.

Pat entries Anchor Down, melodic rock, posi, punk rock, Solidarity Recordings

I don’t know why I bother to do my hair for shows at sweaty clubs. It just turns into a limp, shaggy mess. Monday’s show at The Phoenix was no exception.

Yes, I am aware that this comes almost a week late, but I saw Phoenix at The Phoenix. Synergy!

I went with my good friend Sheri and her friend Grant. We’re all show-going veterans and jaded journalists, so I was curious about how we’d all feel about this group live. Grant and I have both been on Phoenix’s jock for years, while Sheri is a relatively new convert.

I don’t want to presume to speak for Grant, but I think we both felt they did a fantastic job of picking a set list and playing a mix of older songs with stuff from the new album.

Grant said it was one of the best shows he’s ever seen. I don’t know about that, but I’m thinking it might make my top ten shows of the year. But it’s early yet.

I think this was the kind of show that is made or broken by the venue. A year ago, I would’ve put Phoenix at The Phoenix. But now? I think the only reason they played there was the name. With their newfound buzz, the group easily could have filled a bigger venue like Koolhaus. But seeing a show there feels like you’re at a concert in an airplane hangar. The Phoenix is… cosy. And by cosy I mean at a show as packed as Monday’s, you will become well-acquainted with the sweaty bodies of other people.

In his recent entry about Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Pat said their keyboards on the album are as comfy as an old worn blanket and that it made him sleepy. I can relate. There was a looong moment when it was so humid in the club I wanted to die and then, to make it even worse, somebody lit a cigarette even though, no, you cannot smoke in Toronto clubs, asshole. At that moment, they were playing old favourite Run Run Run. It morphed into an epic ten minute version that lulled the room into this hypnotic trance. We were waiting, waiting… It felt like when you’re a kid growing up on the prairies and everyone is just dog tired of the heat and holding their breath for rain. And then, the song ended and it felt like we let out our breath and it broke open and showered down rock and roll. Also, I went to get us some beer, which turned out to be the best beer ever.

I was unprepared for just how much energy they would bring to the stage live, but I probably shouldn’t have been. I saw them on SNL earlier this year and was impressed. And they played Letterman last night, proving it was no fluke.

Getting down to brass tacks, I was a little disappointed that they seemed to rush through Rally - my favourite song of theirs - but they made up for it with Run and held back nothing in their performances of Lisztomania and Lasso, not to mention the moody, noodly indulgence of Love Like a Sunset that worked better live than I expected it would. Their set list was practically perfect. They played off all their albums (and played Pat’s favourite, Consolation Prizes) and I got to hear some of my favourite songs. It was missing only Everything Is Everything, which I was a little disappointed they didn’t play, but hey, you can’t have it all. And they wisely held off on 1901, saving the best for last.

I was surpised by the number of dudes there. Not that I’m complaining about the sausage party, but Phoenix doesn’t really seem like the type of band a bunch of brosephs would go to a show for. And yet, they were out in force. Perhaps I should be thanking them. Please, Phoenix! Visit often!

You can check out Pat’s post for info on where to find Phoenix stuff online. In the meantime, here are some of my favourite songs from their previous albums, It’s Never Been Like That (2006), Alphabetical (2004) and United (2000).

Tanis entries Letterman, live music, mp3, Phoenix, The Phoenix, Toronto

I remember watching a band from my high school perform when I was in Grade 10.

“These guys suck,” I thought.

Lo, my first moment of sneering criticism. Sigh. I remember it like it was yesterday! I don’t know if they ever got anywhere with their music. Probably not. Reflecting back, they really were terrible. Their name was ripped off from plenty of punk groups of the day. The letters FX played a role. Bad news bears all around.

Since then, I’ve suffered through more than my fair shair of teeny boppers acting tough and playing terrible music. I became convinced I would never see a good young band. Kids today! They’re either making music that is terrible and pretentious or terrible and twee! Where are my wax cylinders! Harumph! I’m weary of the whining pseudo punk rockers and the uber-precious emo kids. You get, like, so much material from hanging at the mall? You know? Generally, I ignore any music that is made by a person under the age of 20. This means that I can pretend the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus don’t exist! Win-win!

Then The Canned Goods came along.

I saw their name on a poster for a show last year when I was still writing for the daily rag. Of all the groups on the roster that night, they were the ones that caught my ear. Which is no mean feat when you consider all they had available online at the time was a shakey facebook video with terrible sound.

This band of 13-17 year olds is a throwback to a time before any of its members were born! If the White Stripes and the Black Keys had a baby and that baby grew up listening to the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Who and started a high school band, the Canned Goods would be it.

Their song Julia is a frickin’ tour de force. From the moody opening bass line to the cranky, stuttering guitar, the song is both familiar and distinctive. The band wears their influences on their thrift-store sleeves and in a lot of ways, you can tell that they’re young, but refreshingly so. They’re not trying to be anything other than what they are: Talented teenagers who are feeling their way through their musical influences and carving out a spot on the local scene. They’re doing a goddamn good job of it, too. They’ve performed alongside a lot of great local groups and it’s only a matter of time before they’re going to be getting national press and headling shows of their own.

Guitarist Tyler Bersche has a strong command of his instrument, carving sharp chords and riffs that cut into a song. He also contributes vocals that compliment singer Lexy Troyak’s wails. When I met her, I literally could not believe she was 13. Her voice is raw and mature and miles better than the warbling bullshit being offered up by fakey divas like Avril Lavigne. I don’t know what Grace Slick sounded like when she was 13, but Lexy sounds an awful lot like her now and I suspect her voice is only going to get better as she gets older.

Where many high school bands fail is in the rhythm section. Often, kids haven’t learned to lock that in yet and as a result, they’re all over the map. Not so here. Bersche and Troyak might command the attention, but Elliott Gwynne on bass and Ben Millar on drums totally knocked me out. They give the group a strong backbone laced with elements of funk and jazz on which they hang the vocal hooks, fuzzy guitars and psychedelic riffs.

I won’t detract from the group’s appeal by saying that they’re good “for their age.” They’re just good. And they’re going to be huge. Get in on the secret early and you can say you knew them when.

Check them out tomorrow at the Guelph Multicultural Festival where they’re playing Riverside Park’s main stage at 4 p.m. They’re also going to be performing at the first ever Sunlight Music Festival on Aug. 18 at Riverside Park. That festival also features local musical guru James Gordon and benefits Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis, so plan on attending!

Tanis entries Guelph, high school bands, live music, local music, The Canned Goods

The king of stately, pastoral album art returns!

Little more than a year has passed since Hayden Desser released the very Hayden-like In Field and Town. Like most Hayden albums it was kind of (really) sad and mostly about lady troubles (that is to say trouble with ladies). But it also featured a few of the brightest moments of his career to date as well: “Lonely Security Guard” was a lovely, upbeat character piece about a security guard whose real passion is origami and “Did I Wake Up Beside You?” — while an absolute lyrical downer — contained a chorus with a melody that is downright ebullient, especially for Hayden. After five albums of mostly misery, it was quite nice to see. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.

Enter The Place Where We Lived, an entirely new joint written on the road as Hayden and his mates in Cuff The Duke toured Canada and the U.S., opening for Feist and the National. Its hard to say if Hayden is loosening up on this record, but there are moments that definitely feel like he’s progressing very slowly towards showing some more of the levity and sense of humour he has displayed on stage.

It starts with the opening title track, which bobs along with an occasional guitar riff that is somewhat reminiscent of surf rock, or at least what might result from a surf guitarist listening to too many sad Hayden songs. That is to say its a little bit subdued. But the song on the

The real gem is “Let’s Break Up,” a tale of a “half-glass and…a sad sack” who both know the end is nigh, but only one is willing to admit it. Bolstered by an ebullient walking bassline, the half-glass pleads with the sad sack to cut the chord and let him start moving on. The Duke-sters provide a great don’t-call-it-country shuffle-and-stomp backing track and prop up Hayden’s lilting melody with a delectable high harmony that injects something entirely new into the singer’s oeuvre.

On the whole, however, there’s a lot of the slow, somber, acoustic songs that have been featured on his releases since forever. I’m not suggesting that when you do something exceptionally well you should force yourself outside of that comfort zone, but it seems telling that the most thrilling standout tracks on Hayden’s last few releases aren’t cut from his usual cloth.

Hayden’s CDs are far more reasonably-priced than his vinyl, but both are available from MapleMusic’s website. Dang ol’ iTunes has it too.

Pat entries Canadian content, Cuff The Duke, Hardwood Records, Hayden, indie rock, singer/songwriter

That’s right: ask and you shall receive!

I have no idea what prompted it, but on the post regarding the latest Mountain Goats EP a commenter asked for some good pop music. Well, here’s your chance to listen to a few cuts of what will be the single greatest guitar-pop album of the year.

Had this website existed back in 2006, I probably would have thoroughly gushed about Phoenix’s last full-length, It’s Never Been Like That (thankfully released in Canada on Arts & Crafts, netting it a pretty wide distribution). The band craft taught, wiry power pop that stands on its own. Despite three years lapsing between albums, they’ve been mentioned once or twice before as a reference point.

New album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix finds the band in a curious spot. Yes, they played Saturday Night Live and killed it (playing the incredibly rare third song to boot), but nobody knew who they were before that and people still don’t seem to. At the same time Wolfgang is probably their tightest and most well-constructed album yet. Phoenix are like the Snuggie of the indie rock world: they’re sound is so warm, fuzzy, and comforting even in its darkest moments I can’t see how it’d be possible to resist it. Right from “Lisztomania” on through one of their darkest, most brooding and meandering tracks “Love Like A Sunset” the keyboards are unrelenting. The keyboards wash over the entire thing and just make it feel like a comforting old blanket. Gosh I’m sleepy right now.

Lyrically the band writes with a clarity one would not expect from some French dudes writing in English, their second language. Their lyrics come in crisply-penned, short couplets that are surprisingly insightful (when you can make out what they’re saying).

Anyway, here’s a few songs to enjoy; one of them is old and my favourite Phoenix song ever.

North Americans ought to try InSound for physical copies of Phoenix records. iTunes is there for digital consumption as well.

If you have some extra scheckels laying around pick up the ridiculous super-ultra-limited edition release which features vinyl, artwork, special DVD release, and a special vinyl album with 48 fucking demos from the recording sessions for the record. Forty-eight! What the what?

Pat entries Arts & Crafts, guitar pop, Phoenix, pop rock, Saturday Night Live, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Here it is folks: further proof that John Darnielle can write a song about anything, literally, and make it amazing.

One of the best songwriters of the last 15 years, John Darnielle’s work has been chronicled here several times over. I just love him to bits.

This new EP, Moon Colony Bloodbath, is pretty far out there in concept. Darnielle told P-Fork (and I quote): “Some of the songs have something to do with a loose rock opera/’concept album’ idea about organ harvesting colonies on the moon and the employees thereof, who spent their off months living in secluded opulence in remote American locations.”

I know, right?

But Darnielle and Vanderslice make it work. Buried in the bizzaro narrative lie deeper cautionary tales about the false comfort of materialism and the dangers of overindulging in earthly pleasures. Mostly, its just a freakadoo wacko tale flying straight out of left field. Either way, I’m calling it another win for the Goats.

Pat entries acoustic, indie, John Darnielle, John Vanderslice, Mountain Goats

Super-fantastic news this week, soldiers — Why? is getting set to release another album.

You can stop cheering now.

Yoni Wolf and his band of un-merry men have “just finished up” work on their next piece of genius, titled Eskimo Snow. Wolf told thee Fork this week that the album, which was recorded mostly in tandem with last year’s irreproachable Alopecia, should be out by year’s end on Anticon. He reveals it was actually the album he’d intended to release first, although that decision was obviously reversed at some point in order to facilitate a timeline for the “character” the records center around that made sense.

Which is all well and good, but I really don’t give a damn if its a two-part concept album or a didactic song-cycle designed to explain the electoral college. The stuff he makes just sounds so good.

Wolf also admits that the album will continue to foster his more rock-centric tendencies, moving away from the “art rap” he practiced over the band’s first few releases. I’m okay with that as well; as I stated previously, the prettier he makes his songs sound the more I like them.

Do yourself a favour and head over to Anticon, the band’s label, and pick up whatever they have available.

Pat entries Alopecia, Anticon, art rap, Eskimo Snow, indie rap, Why?

Sound Salvation Army is generally a pretty positive place; that’s why it’s kept a fairly consistent updating schedule in the year and a half or so its been around. We write about what we like, so we like to keep writing. That’s not entirely the case today.

Remember these guys? They weren’t embarrassed by their limited musicianship, the fact that none of their songs had more than four chords, and the closest thing they got to insight was, “Disaffected 20-somethings like to jerk it and are bored.” Or, “Life in the slums is depressing.” Well, apparently they’ve matured. Sort of.

Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown is virtually the same album as American Idiot, the opus from three years ago that made them the biggest band in the world (again). They sound and are structured virtually the same, broken down into “suites” or sub-sections that tell a story (but not really) of characters living on the fringes of society and railing against the mainstream. Which, of course, is exactly what the band is now.

This time around they’ve done it by convincing themselves that they are the Who. Its all built upon huge, windmilling guitar riffs and more bigger everything. Musically there’s nothing really new here, aside from a bit more piano and acoustic guitar. Its fine, really, but that’s not what’s important.

The real issue is that they seem to have started buying into their own hype, feeling the need to repeat the last trick that vaulted them to the top of the industry. Its something they haven’t resorted to in the past and that could be why it comes out smelling so wrong this time around.

21st Century Breakdown is replete with milquetoast “protest” music that rails against the vaguest sketches of the corrupt and immoral in modern society but doesn’t have the stones to actually construct a real and substantial explanation of why they’re so angry. That’s demonstrated in the early offing with first single, “Know Your Enemy.” The tune is catchy enough, a mid-tempo pop rock number that offers twice as many guitar solos as any other Green Day song ever (two!) and vague platitudes of standing up to “the vast majority” and “the demons of the soul.” There’s a thick sense of irony in the too-often repeated refrain of “Do you know your enemy?” — the band themselves never really seems to establish who their message is aimed at. At least with American Idiot the listener was able to infer Bush/Bush II were the targets. With the latter’s administration now banished to the fringes of the U.S. political system it seems like what little fury Green Day can muster is either a day late or clumsily misdirected at the major structured religions. If your goal is to create a story-based concept album centering around young adults and how the church can corrupt and destroy them, you’re kind of venturing off on a fool’s errand; we’ve already got Separation Sunday and topping that is going to be damn near impossible.

So forget the half-baked conceits of modern days and let’s harken back to better ones when three punk rock geeks from the 90’s punk mecca of Berkley were satisfied with just being Green Day and not with creating the biggest brand in modern music.

I remember in 1992/3 hearing my sister listening to Kerplunk!, their second LP, and being intrigued by it. I snuck into her room to tape the CD onto a cassette and I listened to it constantly. Reading, playing video games, shooting hoops in the driveway; Stephen King’s Richard Bachmann novels and The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past still conjure faint whispers of “No One Knows” and “Christie Road.” That was this band’s real accomplishment, as far as I’m concerned.

But I’m an equal opportunity fan of their older material. Their second through fourth albums were more or less flawless (the sixth too). There are gems throughout the band’s history that are worth a second look, especially now that their more bloviating tendencies are so starkly on display.

No disrespect: they’re still one of my all-time favourite bands of all-time, thanks especially to the impact their music had on my formative youth. But seriously you guys, the Foxboro Hot Tubs album? So much better than this.

Pat entries 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot, Green Day, Kerplunk, pop, pop rock, rock