The End of the World
French Exit
Rating: 3.5
Label: Pretty Activity
A snippet of between-song banter (ostensibly from a live show) opens the sophomore release of Brooklyn’s The End of the World. A band member thanks the audience for coming out to hear them play and hopes they’re having a good time drinking beers with friends. Someone off-stage shouts, “Don’t get sentimental,” which prompts someone else to order the band to “get more sentimental!” This sentiment accurately describes the thrust of French Exit, a short, moody little record that finds drummer/singer Stefan Marolachakis and guitarist Benjamin Smith getting nostalgic over the present, as it is, after all, the future past.
The duo prides itself on sticking together as twentysomethings in hectic New York City, with friends, relationships and bass players coming and going, changing like the tide. In fact, a French Exit is a slang term for leaving without a goodbye. The title is fascinating and apt, given that this French Exit’s songs are populated with several first names. There’s Kate, Jody, Sally and Billy. Marolachakis sounds like a less romantic and slier Ben Gibbard, singing in a nostalgia-tipsy fashion about these folks that just weren’t around long enough or were too capricious for an ultimate relationship to come to full-flower.
The true first tune, “Jody,” is an ode to a girl whom Marolachakis says “should be the first thing that they see.” Sentimental, indeed and Smith doesn’t really come into his own here, his guitar ambling along a la Pavement. Any doubts sewn by this track are turned on ear by “Someone Else’s Dollar,” a great song that mines the same territory as Spoon’s “Small Stakes” and “How We Get By.” Marolachakis here sings the gentle, dissatisfied murmur of the Millennial-aged kid, trying his or her damnedest to stay afloat financially and socially, as they realize there’s not exactly any chance to get ahead. The bassline’s oddly sweet bounce turns the track poignant while Smith delivers some delicate arpeggios and far-off backing vocals coo like ghosts.
“Someone Else’s Dollar” is emblematic of the record’s strength; it turns both dissatisfaction and rosy, bleary personal remembrance into music that has an atmospheric air of yearning to it. “Learning” has Marolachakis wishing Sally would “drag [her] smile away” and that she’d “fill [her] day with other heroes,” as he has no heart to deal with the capricious Sally himself. The song sounds a relative of Neil Young’s “Helpless,” which speaks for The End of the World’s ability to evoke an emotion in the listener.
It’s a pleasant surprise of a record but the band’s reliance on the melodramatics of ambiance makes the weaker songs more forgettable in the long run. It’s certainly pleasing to hear Smith’s slide guitar turn up on a track but it’s hard to recall which ones featured it. Apart from the beautiful “Someone Else’s Dollar,” the record doesn’t really work its way into the blood of the listener; there’s no strong urge to return for more, though it is suited for a particular late-night whiskey mindset.
by Chris Middleman
