A strange confluence of events led to my picking up this 2011 album today. The first event was last week's Chronicle cover article on the band. I don't always read articles on bands I've never heard before, but the story of this album and this band was too interesting to skim over. A local indie band with Christian leanings and following has a crisis of faith and releases an album largely about the internal struggle over making a spiritual 180. It's riveting stuff especially if you can relate to it, which after 12 years of Catholic school, I can. The second event was my friends at OVRLD doing one of their In-Time Interviews about this album. It quickly became obvious that I needed to listen to it. Thankfully we live in the age of Spotify where I can listen to an entire album before making a judgement on it, which is what I did and immediately decided that I needed to own it ... on vinyl even!
This was another Austin group that OVRLD introduced me to. In general, the more "pop" something sounds, the pickier I am with it and I could tell by the article that The Soldier Thread was more pop than not. The track OVRLD chose to accompany the write up caught my interest though and once again, Spotify helped me decide that this was another one I needed to pick up. It's tough to find pop music that doesn't make me feel dirty for having listened to it. This is an EP I don't think I'd feel bad about defending.
This is the third LP from this group and their first "major" label release with Epitaph. As always, I worry about small bands when they sign with a bigger label. Major labels have a way of bullying bands into producing the album that they think will sell instead of what the band wants to make. I know this is the kind of paranoid, elitist thing that every music snob says, but if you don't believe me just ask the guys from Cave In about their "Antenna" album. My other worry about The Menzingers is that while I loved their last LP "Chamberlain Waits", there has been a definite progression in their sound since they debuted and they're starting to remind me more and more of The Gaslight Anthem. It's not that The Gaslight Anthem are a bad band, but I always felt they would have been a kick-ass punk band had they not opted for a more approachable "roots rock" sound and lyrics. After streaming The Menzingers' latest release on Punknews.org I ultimately liked what I heard. It's more mellow and I still feel like their progressing in a more accessible, less punk direction, but I still dig it at the moment. I was going to pick this album up on vinyl, but Epitaph decided to do the kind of thing I HATE by having a vinyl release that also included a CD of the album, allowing them to charge $20 for the whole thing. If they had done a more traditional vinyl and mp3 packaging, I may have been able to pay closer to $15-17, which I would have considered much more reasonable. Instead I decided to purchase the $10 CD.
This was the album I hadn't planned on buying today. I first heard this band a few years back after seeing them live with a friend in Virginia and I really liked what I heard. As much as I love my punk music, from time to time I likes me some stripped down banjo and fiddle jams. Honeyhoney showed potential back when I first hear them, but I never really kept track of them. They must have released a new album last year though because that's what I ended up purchasing today after seeing a posted among the constantly shifting mosaic at the Waterloo Record checkout counter. It certainly isn't your average impulse buy, but I'm looking forward to it.
So I left Waterloo with 4 new albums. Generally speaking this is nothing special for me except it probably brings the total of new albums I've purchased this month to something like 8, which for some people is more than they purchase in a year. This is the way I roll though. Depending on how I feel about these albums you may see some reviews here in the near future. Until then, check them out for yourself. There's definitely some winners in the bunch.
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