Guster’s Keep It Together was one of the very best albums of 2003. It saw the band transform themselves from a quirky jam-scene group of fey vocalists and acoustic guitarists to a full-blown pop band who took their knowledge of catchy hooks and married it with the undeniable power of guitar, bass, and drums. Songs like “Amsterdam” and the title track still populate my playlists and get lodged in my head just about once a week.
Thus, I was very much looking forward to this year’s follow-up, Ganging up on the Sun, their fifth studio album, which features new band member Joe Pisapia, a “multi-instrumentalist.” With even more band firepower, I reasoned, the album was sure to deliver even more perfect pop nuggets. Instead, their new Reprise Records release is more of a step sideways, maybe even a little backwards. It’s a good album, full of solid vocal harmonies and interesting arrangements, but it gets caught between adventurous and jones-fulfilling and feels like an album in search of an identity — like they’d been listening to a bunch of Flaming Lips or Belle & Sebastian but didn’t have the heart to go all in and get plain freaky or full-on indie rock.
The opening track’s lyrics hint at this crossroads: “Standing on this high rise, like I’m a lighting rod, and all these clouds are boiling over/Swimming in adrenaline, the sky is caving in, I will remain the honest soldier.” They reached some great heights with with Keep It Together (selling nearly 300,000 copies), but that drew attention, a pressure, whether from outside or within, to do something more impressive and important. Caught up in this mandate, they keep things from going all to hell by remaining true to their pop origins. Thus, a song that fades in with an organ in the left channel, joined by a high guitar phrase, only promises to build into a full-blown song.
Repeatedly, choruses that should be blown out to all get out are muted and repressed, crescendos never quite break in the ways they promise, instrumental breaks feel like a means to an end. Is it self-doubt? Too much introspection? In “One Man Wrecking Machine,” full of chiming bells and a distorted organ like out of Erasure’s “Chorus,” we get a strong taste of regret: “I want pull it apart and put it back together, I want to relive all my adolescent dreams/Inspired by true events on movie screens, I am a one man wrecking machine.” Compare the punch of the chorus here with the passion and delivery of the chorus that punctuates the similarly themed “Massachusetts,” from Keep It Together; it just doesn’t deliver in the same way.
I hate to criticize, actually, because the band really ought to be commended, by someone less selfish, for trying new things. “The Captain” kicks like Steve Earle, with bass drum bumping and picked guitar bleeding into banjo cowpunk. This might even be a political song, a Bush criticism: “Courageous just like the captain/Marching forward with no doubt in his head.” Drummer Ryan Rosenworcel provides a clean drive that pushes the song while the guitars meander, and then crashes through the finish.
Guster follow this with “The New Underground,” likely their most rocking song yet, with some Clash guitars and a vampy punk aesthetic. Lead vocalist Ryan Miller has some sneer in his vocals, and I really dig the B-movie organ that finishes the tune. But the “yeah, alright, uh-huh” vocals in the background are straight-up cheese. Other highlights include the Wings-y “Hang On” and the bluesy “C’mon,” full of fat piano.
Perhaps my problems with the album are best illustrated by the seven-minute “Ruby Falls.” After about three minutes of standard rock/pop, there’s an extensive bridge filled with croonings of “sing along,” pitter patters of guitars, and a bouncily repeating bass line. Then comes a female emotive vocal, some digital beeps, and then, yes, a trumpet. Man, they’re throwing the kitchen sink at you here. It even gets ethereal and a little bit sour, finishing with two trumpet tracks.
After reveling in their delicious propensity for singalong, I’m disappointed by a poor man’s Wilco.
On the Web
Guster: www.guster.com
Email the author
Sam Pfeifle: sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com
