Japandroids
Post-Nothing
Rating: 3.0
Label: Unfamiliar
Hopefully this isn’t news, but you’re all aware we’re in the midst of a recession, yes? And whatever your thoughts (or lack thereof) concerning the politics of poverty, it looks like we’re all going to be here for a while. And you know that cliché about how things always remain the same? About how we just repeat the past endlessly, like trains on tracks unable to diverge from our intended path without horrible consequences? Well, it’s true; take this recent wave of SST Records revivalism going on, led by slackers suddenly aware that music, is like, their life, man. Whether your personal flavor is the bedroom fuzz pop of Wavves, the Dinosaur Jr. approximation Abe Vigoda suddenly morphed into, or the Husker Du-by-way-of-Vancouver duo Japandroids, it’s all eerily similar to what the indie landscape looked like circa the Reagan years. Which is all fine and good by me, really, but isn’t it a little sad that we haven’t really progressed?
I’m going to pick on the Japandroids specifically here, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things and from where I’m standing, they’re definitely in the latter camp right now. Sure, they’ve got Husker Du’s velocity down, and those drums are pretty epic, but where are the harmonies and hooks Husker Du mastered starting around the middle of their too-short career? Where are the intense, panicky structures, the scorching hot guitars, the things that Husker Du are arguably most known for today? Because if you’re going to rip off a label and its template, I don’t see the point in mucking about with the early, flawed experiments. You roll the hard six or you don’t roll shit.
Which isn’t to say that Japandroids is completely hopeless. Their debut Post-Nothing has a decent ratio of out and out barnstormers, like the fiery, impassioned “Wet Hair,” which is, uh, a song about making out, of all things. Guitars strummed by hands that sound possessed, alternately chanted and shouted vocals that eventually morph into some of that harmonized awesomeness I mentioned as lacking before, it’s the type of track that pops up on countless mix tapes in a given summer. “Sovereignty” is pretty close to the same thing, but slower and with tighter drums. Unfortunately, the group doles out moments like these rarely, making the album a slightly sluggish affair that’ll leave you with your finger on the skip button too often, forcing you to go back to those two or three tracks you just want to hear over and over.
It doesn’t help that vocalist Brian King still apparently hasn’t learned the benefit of varying his melodies or letting his voice sit in a mix rather than fight just to be barely heard. Pair that with guitar lines that all sound as though they’re small variations of the same chords – add an atonal variation here, drop in some harmonics here, call it good – and there’s your basic Japandroids track. Repetition can of course be a thing of wonder, but here it’s mostly boring and exhausting, a sign of a band that puts more emphasis on energy than execution. Given time and practice and a disastrous world tour or two, Japandroids honestly could be great; left alone, they’re either going to disappear completely or turn into a one-trick pony.
Maybe it’s a thing of youth. Maybe it’s unfair to put so much weight on a band that still seems to be primarily concerned with girls, making out, getting drunk, girls, late nights, sweaty shows and girls. And hey, I like most of those things as much as the next 20-something, but lately it seems like artists should just be a little more cognizant of the world around them. With Armageddon approaching and all, it just feels like we should all be listening to things with more to say than “we can French kiss/ Some French girls.”
by Morgan Davis
