Artist: Japandroids
Album: Post-Nothing
Year: 2009
Grade: 2.5 pretzels
I am not an old person by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a twenty-year-old college student, for crying out loud. However, this puts me in a very odd position whenever I want to describe something as “juvenile” or “immature.” Immature compared to what, you might ask? As a twenty-year-old, I’m supposed to be out getting drunk, chasing girls and living the dream, right? Well, it’s those moments that lead to me always worrying that I’m somehow horribly out of touch with the standard mindset for people of my age. While I don’t really believe I am, an album like this year’s much buzzed about Post-Nothing by the Vancouver-based Japandroids still sounds far too young for me, even at the ripe age of twenty, to really enjoy.
Musically, Japandroids look back to the buzzing guitar drone of the mid-90s, particularly the Smashing Pumpkins and their ilk. I usually encourage bands to make an ungodly amount of noise, so Japandroids should be right up my alley, idiotic name or otherwise. Unfortunately, they make the ultimate rock faux pas by being only a guitar/drum duo, leaving out the all-important bass player that is (at least in my opinion) absolutely necessary for music this loud and dense. While the massive guitar chords cover the low end, not having a bass there, even if it was just repeating the root notes of the chords, leaves Japandroids’ music missing a very important dimension. To my ears, the album sounds empty and thin, even with all the noisy guitars.
However, the lyrics are the most cringe-worthy element of Post-Nothing. I’m not exactly sure what to make of a chorus like “I don’t wanna worry about dying, I just wanna worry about sunshine girls.” How many clichéd, formless images of youth are there in that one simple sentence? Too many. Also, that song’s title is “Young Hearts Spark Fire”. Last I checked, that sounds like a band name for an overwrought Warped Tour band from New Jersey, not a band being heralded in the music press as the next great indie rock hope. Another song on the album, “Wet Hair”, features the impossibly clunky line “she had wet hair, say what you will, I don’t care, I couldn’t resist her.” Besides not particularly making sense, it’s just an annoyingly sappy line. It doesn’t help that singer Brian King delivers the line in a screeching, teenage sneer. Maybe I just can’t personally relate to the song, since I’ve never discovered an irresistible, wet-haired girl over the course of my life. All I know is the song makes me feel old and that’s a serious problem.
Of course, the band has to make my life difficult by closing their album with the considerable brilliance of “I Quit Girls”, which really doesn’t do anything differently from the rest of the album, but sounds about eighty-million times better (give or take). Something about its crunching, howling guitar riff just works for me. Also, the lyrics are considerably sadder than the standard celebrations of girls and drunkenness elsewhere on the album. I’m always going to support sad songs in that context. I don’t know what this means for the future of Japandroids, however. By giving their album a fairly negative review, I realize I’m already putting myself in the minority when it comes to critical opinion. Big players like Pitchfork and The Onion’s A.V. Club have already weighed in with exceedingly positive grades, so I can only assume I’m missing something here. But there’s very little here I feel compelled to support. Any album so blissed out and clichéd that it makes a twenty-year-old feel out of touch should be treated with utmost caution.
Musically, Japandroids look back to the buzzing guitar drone of the mid-90s, particularly the Smashing Pumpkins and their ilk. I usually encourage bands to make an ungodly amount of noise, so Japandroids should be right up my alley, idiotic name or otherwise. Unfortunately, they make the ultimate rock faux pas by being only a guitar/drum duo, leaving out the all-important bass player that is (at least in my opinion) absolutely necessary for music this loud and dense. While the massive guitar chords cover the low end, not having a bass there, even if it was just repeating the root notes of the chords, leaves Japandroids’ music missing a very important dimension. To my ears, the album sounds empty and thin, even with all the noisy guitars.
However, the lyrics are the most cringe-worthy element of Post-Nothing. I’m not exactly sure what to make of a chorus like “I don’t wanna worry about dying, I just wanna worry about sunshine girls.” How many clichéd, formless images of youth are there in that one simple sentence? Too many. Also, that song’s title is “Young Hearts Spark Fire”. Last I checked, that sounds like a band name for an overwrought Warped Tour band from New Jersey, not a band being heralded in the music press as the next great indie rock hope. Another song on the album, “Wet Hair”, features the impossibly clunky line “she had wet hair, say what you will, I don’t care, I couldn’t resist her.” Besides not particularly making sense, it’s just an annoyingly sappy line. It doesn’t help that singer Brian King delivers the line in a screeching, teenage sneer. Maybe I just can’t personally relate to the song, since I’ve never discovered an irresistible, wet-haired girl over the course of my life. All I know is the song makes me feel old and that’s a serious problem.
Of course, the band has to make my life difficult by closing their album with the considerable brilliance of “I Quit Girls”, which really doesn’t do anything differently from the rest of the album, but sounds about eighty-million times better (give or take). Something about its crunching, howling guitar riff just works for me. Also, the lyrics are considerably sadder than the standard celebrations of girls and drunkenness elsewhere on the album. I’m always going to support sad songs in that context. I don’t know what this means for the future of Japandroids, however. By giving their album a fairly negative review, I realize I’m already putting myself in the minority when it comes to critical opinion. Big players like Pitchfork and The Onion’s A.V. Club have already weighed in with exceedingly positive grades, so I can only assume I’m missing something here. But there’s very little here I feel compelled to support. Any album so blissed out and clichéd that it makes a twenty-year-old feel out of touch should be treated with utmost caution.
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