Andrew Jackson Jihad Drop a Bomb
... And the Folk-Rock Explosion is titillating.
Andrew Jackson Jihad
Can't Maintain
Released on Sep 08, 2009
For the past couple years, I’ve heard people try to put Andrew Jackson Jihad into concise musical compartments, more often than not of their own invention. Post-folk, folk-punk and even anarcho-folk have been thrown around as descriptions. I’ve even heard them referred to as an Americana band, because though there’s something very modern American about a lot of their songs, this is a long, long way from good-‘ol-boy balladry. I’m pretty sure Woody Guthrie, however much of an influence he may have been (they previously aped a verse of his on “Survival Song,” off 2007’s People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World) never wrote a love song about throwing rocks at dogs.
Every band eventually grows up though, often with mixed results. With Can’t Maintain, for the first time, AJJ feel like a band that’s starting to see the beauty in all the bullshit, rather than the other way around. This evolution, unlike many for punk bands with a following like theirs, comes naturally. The last three tracks of People… showed them moving toward a more sincere (but not less ferocious, by any stretch) mode of writing. This was also apparent on their EP Only God Can Judge Me, with the track “Guilt: The Song” standing as a haunting tale of regret, spurred on by a mournful, cathartic duel between cello and slightly out-of-tune acoustic guitar.
On Can’t Maintain (the title is cribbed from the Notorious B.I.G. song “Things Done Changed”), Sean Bonnette and Ben Gallaty (the two main members amidst the rotating host of backing musicians) tap into the well of late-20s fear that has spurred some of their most beloved songs like “Growing Up” and “Candle In The Wind.” Here, that manifests itself in the form of tracks like “Self Esteem,” in which Bonnette sings about how “I’m afraid to go out in the streets/Reminders of my failure everywhere that I will be.” If there’s one overarching theme to this record, it’s the raging phobia of not having found love or success at a time when everyone around you is starting to act like we’re told adults are supposed to.
The big change that I’ve managed to get through three paragraphs without addressing is the major spike in instrumentation. Previously, you got Bonnette playing acoustic guitar, Gallaty playing the upright bass and…well, with a few exceptions, that was pretty much it. As soon as the opening electric trill of “Heartilation” kicks in, you’re very aware that AJJ aren’t in Kansas anymore. Never has a kick drum sounded so much like a revelation as it does after a few albums that sounded like they were recorded in a bathroom in single takes. Purists will likely cry foul at the presence of synthesizers on “Self Esteem,” or the twinkling bells on “We Didn’t Come Here To Rock,” but that’s the name of the game.
What’s interesting is that Asian Man Records is putting this album out, which conjures memories of another band that put out their first two records on that label, Alkaline Trio. It might seem more than a bit hyperbolic to put Can’t Maintain in the same category as Maybe I’ll Catch Fire, but I don’t think it’s nearly as inappropriate as most would think, not when both records are testaments to their respective bands hitting their stride. The difference is that while Trio arguably peaked there, AJJ seem like they’re just warming up, as evidenced by songs like “Truckers Are The Blood” and “Who Are You?,” probably two of their best songs to date.
On the former, Bonnette uses the metaphor of America as a diseased human body to paint all the wage slaves as the cure, whether it’s the truckers in the song or the punks writing it. On the latter, an ode is sung to his never-there father, but it’s atypical in that it’s a thank-you for not staying around to mess his life up. This is the central strength of the album; a lot of the lyrical territory is fairly well-worn, but every track sounds new and vital. (Yes, even the kazoo interlude in the middle.) This is a band humming with the strength of figuring out how to be young and angry without writing songs like “Fuck White People” all the time. More than anything, this is a record that leaves you salivating at what this band is going to be capable of moving forward.
High Point
“Truckers Are The Blood” hits the perfect pitch of fearful anxiety and stands out as the album’s real manifesto. It also showcases Bonnette’s ability to rein his caterwauling in to really pull at the heartstrings.
Low Point
If any, “Olde(y) Tyme(y) isn’t a bad song so much as it really doesn’t fit tonally with the rest of this record. It feels like it belongs on one of their older albums.
Posted by Dominick Mayer on Aug 06, 2009 @ 7:00 am
