The ALBUM Section: January 2024
Digging into the latest releases from Green Day, Sleater-Kinney and Torres
Things picked up this month when it came to new releases.
The Smile, who’s ongoing presence reminds us that Radiohead’s effectively broken up, improved on their second album, Wall of Eyes.
Marika Hackman dialed things back, but remained utterly absorbing on Big Sigh.
But we’re going to be looking at efforts by Green Day and Sleater-Kinney to get back on track and by Torres to remain on a roll.
The last decade or so hasn’t been the most even for Green Day.
They were on a roll with their pointed homage to the classic rock concept album — 2004’s American Idiot, whose relevance was underscored when a live lyric change led to a belated revelation for some right-wingers that they were the target of the song all along.
2009’s 21st Century Breakdown represented a slight dip, but was still a solid effort in the vein of its predecessor.
Artist: Green Day
Album: Saviors
Label: Reprise Records
★★★ 1/2 (3.5/5 stars)
That’s when things derailed. In 2012, the band decided that rather condense the best material into a pretty good album, they split it up into three albums released that fall — ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! — which diluted their efforts.
2016’s Revolution Radio was a step back in the right direction, but 2020’s Father of All Motherfuckers, produced by Butch Walker, was a team up that should have worked better than it did — a shade too safe even with its glam/garage tendencies and with a poorly chosen sample.
Yes, it was Joan Jett’s cover, it was still a sample of a song called “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)”, co-written by convicted pedophile Gary Glitter. Even donating the royalties from the song to International Justice Mission and Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) couldn’t keep it from being a misguided idea.
That sample was in the credits, but there was no mention in the credits for the writers of “Hippy Hippy Shake,” which the album’s “Stab You in the Heart,” quite obviously lifted from.
Green Day does a similar trick on Saviors, taking the opening riff on “One-Eyed Bastards” from P!nk’s “So What” to the point where one almost anticipates lawyers getting involved.
The new album marks the first time they’ve worked with producer Rob Cavallo, who’s been in that position for their best albums, since 21st Century Breakdown.
At this point, with all three band members in their 50s, it feels like there have been those who will insist they aren’t punk. There is a certain segment of that group still angry that Green Day didn’t just stay on Lookout! and be another obscure band that only the cool kids know about as they pore through their stacks of obscure 7″ singles.
There are others who will insist that their days as punks are long past, which has a grain of truth to it, but not for the reasons they think. Punk has become another form of classic rock, used in commercials and the like. The young punks who got into Green Day early are pushing or past 50.
All of this is/is not punk talk obscures what Green Day has always been — a singles band. Sure, there have been great albums along the way, like Dookie and American Idiot. But their core strength is to infuse punk with pop, rock and even power pop (looking at you, “Redundant”) into a vehicle for catchy songs.
It’s clear that’s what the band’s going for on Saviors.
The first single, “Look Ma, No Brains!” is the type of infectious anthem for the self-described loser they’ve cranked out since they existed. And they skipped the decades-long wait with its placement in a Taco Bell commercial.
VIDEO: Green Day “Look Ma, No Brains!”
Because, after all, there’s nothing that says “Eat our mass-produced Americanized Mexican food” like a song with the lyric “Sick boy and I shit the bed” in its opening verse.
“1981” lands its hook at a rapid pace. “Suzi Chapstick” goes more mid-tempo into power pop territory.
“The American Dream Is Killing Me” is both a clear attempt to revisit the American Idiot mindset, albeit with less sharp lyrics that could have used another pass. It still has a chorus ready-made for singalongs.
More likely to raise right-wing ire (and projectingly confessional cries of “groomer!”) is “Bobby Sox,” which switches genders of the object of affection, as Armstrong sings, “Do you wanna be my boyfriend/We’ll walk the cemetery and I’ll kiss you again/And make our dead friends blush.”
There are times where the band ditches the punk altogether. “Corvette Summer” is straightforward rock, complete with cowbell. “Father to a Son” is literal dad arena rock. “Goodnight Adeline” is clearly designed to get cellphones waving.
It’s not a full return to form. As good as its best moments are, there’s a lingering feeling that they’ve done it better, that the lyricist let down the composer.
As derivative as “One-Eyed Bastard” is with its uncredited, purloined riff, the phoned-in “Bada bing, bada bing, bada boom” chorus is the big offender.
The lyrical concerns of “Strange Days Are Here to Stay” are all over the place. At one point, the line “Everybody’s racist” gets tossed out there, but before long the line “Grandma’s on fentanyl now” appears. I doubt there’s a crisis of fentanyl taking out nonagenerians. Focus, guys. Focus.
Green Day doesn’t recapture past glories on Saviors, which winds up being workmanlike, but not essential. Its best moments, like “Bobby Sox,” will fit nicely on future compilations, but the wait for the next great Green Day album continues.
These have also not been the smoothest years for Sleater-Kinney.
The band parted ways with drummer Janet Weiss before the tour for 2019’s The Center Won’t Hold, an admirable attempt to try new things (like synths) that traded off immediacy for experimentation at times. Path of Wellness, two years later, was an improvement, albeit a little too smooth in spots.
Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein were in good position to have their feet fully back under them — a second album post-Weiss and past the worst of the pandemic.
Artist: Sleater-Kinney
Album: Little Rope
Label: Loma Vista
★★★ 3/4 (3.75/5 stars)
They were five songs into making the album when Brownstein received a crushing blow — her mother and stepfather were killed in a car accident while on vacation in Italy.
Death, grief and dread haven’t been strangers to Sleater-Kinney’s repertoire. This is the band whose chilling “Jumpers” was one of the standouts off 2005’s The Woods, after all.
But here, it’s more internalized, a grief that takes on more than form. Sure, there are tears, but there are also the days when you’re strictly on autopilot.
That’s not the case for “Say It Like You Mean It,” a song about losing love that sounds like a shoulda-been-hit for them in the ’90s with Corin Tucker’s full-throated vocals.
As much chemistry as the classic lineup of the band was, it’s the interplay between Tucker and Carrie Brownstein that’s been the key element in making it work all these years.
Take “Hunt You Down,” which essays grief without wallowing, Brownstein taking the verses before Tucker joins her to lift the chorus (“The thing you fear the most will/Hunt you down”) to greater heights, taking power from that very fear.
There’s a taste of traded lead vocals in there, something curiously absent for much of the record.
Opener “Hell” fights against its overly distorted production in the chorus after its tense verses (“Hell don’t have no future/Hell don’t have no doubt/Hell is just a place that/We can’t seem to live without”)
That distortion (a bizarre choice) carries over into the new wavey “Needlessly Wild,” which has the unintended effect of diluting its power.
VIDEO: Sleater-Kinney “Untidy Creature”
It also infects “Small Finds,” which marries post-punk and the type of Sonic Youth-era Kim Gordon who came up with “Bull in the Heather” with a very S-K chorus. But the whole time, one’s left wondering, “Did this overly loud version wind up on the album by accident? It had to, right?”
A woozy synth weaves its way through “Don’t Feel Right,” a deliberate contrast of being rather upbeat musically and utterly downbeat lyrically. It’s a much more effective composing choice than the backing for “Dress Yourself”, with its underwhelming percussion.
In contrast, the drumming is terrific on songs like the stomping “Six Mistakes” and closing number “Untidy Creature,” but again the intentionally ugly production blunts its impact.
Working through grief together, Brownstein and Tucker deliver a series of committed performances that manage to make Little Rope Sleater-Kinney’s best album since their 2015 comeback No Cities to Love.
One’s left hoping for better days for the band and better production in the future, because the overly buzzing distortion robs Little Rope of the clarity needed for the emotions to land with the needed heft.
Recent years have been kinder to Mackenzie Scott, known as Torres onstage and on record. She married artist Jenna Gribbon in 2022, part of a more settled life.
That affected her mindset going into What an enormous room. She told Alternative Press this month, “I have a family now. I have a support system. I’m married. I have a stepchild. I have a lot more stability in general. First of all, I’m extremely grateful to be in that position. I recognize what a privilege that is. Being able to use that as a grounding mechanism to help me look beyond myself when I make things, and focus on making songs that let other people feel supported.”
She opens the album with the confident groove of “Happy new shoes,” then soon shows the same attitude in “Wake with flowers.” The latter is similarly styled — bass punctuated by sharp guitar, but with lyrics reflecting more wonder (“Didn’t know I’d wake to flowers/After goin’ to sleep to rain/Is this my life?”)
Artist: Torres
Album: What an enormous room
Label: Merge Records
★★★★ 1/4 (4.25/5 stars)
“Collect” is full-on ’90s angry alternative rock, with Torres sounding like Shirley Manson fronting mid-90s PJ Harvey.
Synths give life to “Jerk with joy,” about trying to find comfort in being able to rebuild, with the album title, clearly a metaphor, being spoken through the song.
It’s a favorite of Torres on the record. As she told Alternative Press, “Well, I’ve been thinking about making that song for so many years, and I couldn’t figure it out. I was always writing around it and trying to figure out what I even wanted to say with it, and I couldn’t figure it out. And I finally did.”
The album is full of textures — guitars that buzz, that poke and cut through the atmosphere, keyboards that cover like low-lying fog and take command.
Many of the lyrics offer more foreboding hints of darkness around the surface. The slithering organ and guitar of “Artificial limits” underscore its message, which is pretty much “enjoy today because you might die tomorrow.”
VIDEO: Torres “Wake to flowers”
Domestic bliss isn’t what it’s cracked up to be in “Ugly mystery,” with its undercurrent of possible infidelity (“Hope is so violent and I knew you wouldn’t jump ship/Unlеss you saw another one coming”).
Getting through anxiety permeates “I got the fear.”
The soundscapes get pulled back kas the album ends with “Songbird forever,” which is carried by Torres’ soothing vocals and piano which reverberates.
What an enormous room may not be as immediate as its predecessor, 2021’s Thirstier, but as produced by Torres and Sarah Jaffe, it’s sure to get under your skin.
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