AWOLNATION

I have absolutely no idea why i thought of Sail and Kill Your Heroes earlier today, but who says i can't go listen to the entire AWOLNATION discography on youtube? Of course i can. I might have to stop in the middle and feed chickens, or have ice cream, or refresh my adult beverage a couple times, but i was going to do that anyway. Skip the first ep, on with the show.

Megalithic symphony:

Hip-hop intro robot name check. Some lady singing "wake up." So, you should know what you're going to get. Like if Justin Timberlake joined Fallout Boy. No seriously, this is going to be a mishmash of alternative rock and hip-hop from top to bottom, with a couple ballads here and there. Let go of the "pop" and "rock" labels, and think about what you're really going to get. 1) beatwork, 2) borderline rap and soul style verses, 3) catchy singalong choruses. They are not a "rock band," so approaching it that way is a recipe for hating them. The chorus to Not Your Fault is awesome. Gospel ballad thing, sure i'm smiling, it's nice. Tell me "Canadian Tour" isn't a Backstreet Boys or N'Sync track. I like that Castles nintendo beat feel. This is white guy hip-hop. It's not offensive, it's mildly goofy, it's fun. Short spoken word story. Soul Wars is straight up dance, like Fallout Boy's similar efforts. People is festival dance junk, but it's fun. The last few tracks are the same, Sail and Kill Your Heroes are the obvious singles from the album, that snark is like a delicious candy bar with nuts and nougat, and it's all capped off with some live snippets from the recording. As albums go, it's structured really well, and it's not at all hard to listen to for anyone who likes great beats and catchy tunes.

What's Run have for us? Electronic beat work, and humans doing terrible things according to the title track. This is definitely darker than anything on the first album. Will that keep playing out? Wait now you're awake? You just said you weren't awake and you were a bad guy on the last track. Now a love song? Yelling "fat face" is confusing. Is this like a fractured personality album? Bad wolf? Like you're Rose with the time vortex in her head? I get it though, it's you dealing with your own insecurities. Dark beats and singy screamy stuff. It's fine. Not like  earth shattering, but enjoyable. You know what it reminds me of? Dark Side of the Moon. Remember when i said Roger Waters' statement was that all this feel bad dark stuff is what actually connects us as a collective humanity? But, it's too sentimental for my taste. This isn't a sit down and listen album, it's a headphones at the gym workout album, but it's also about 5 tracks too long. 

Here Come the Runts. Or rather, here comes an unproduced AWOLNATION album. Cold start, you might not like it. It's growing on me thought. Is Aaron Bruno's falsetto great? No. How much did the Duff Mckagen and Rick Rubin cameos in Seven Sticks of Dynamite cost? This is the most eclectic album so far, but the recipe is pretty much the same. Look, this hour plus stuff is too much. Why don't i like it? Because once you pass 50 minutes i think that you think you're never going to get to make another album, so you just smash everything into it. Look, a DIY album where the songs are literally your rescue dogs is a 30 minute album tops, and at least 6 of these tracks don't need to be here. I'm not gonna tell you which ones to cut, and i'm not gonna lie and say any of them are bad, but there's no reason to have interludes on this thing.

Which brings us to April 2020. This will either be prescient or pointless. Great news, the studio beatwork is back. Slam is pretty good, if comparatively downtempo. But, he's consistently painting half his face, going back and forth between dumb optimism and broody noirish conflict. Fiesta fever running through my veins? No it's not. And i can't do Lightening Riders. Please stop glowing in the dark. I can't sugar coat it, the choruses suck now and he actually says "remember the 9th of November." 

Now, i didn't mention it the few times it happened before, but AB quite often just vamps on the song title. Radical is the absolute worst. Blech. Don't listen to the second half, it's like Imagine Dragons, but like the crosseyed knock off brand dragons with uneven nostrils. 

So what happened over the last 9 years? Aaron Bruno lost all sense of humor about anything and now he's like "i know things are tough right now guys, but think positive and we can win third all around at the swim meet. Let's overcome our depression and go out for pizza."  Barf. 

I like AWOLNATION quite a lot, but they don't make albums. They don't. It's 14 songs from whatever ideas they worked on over the last couple years. They should be an EP band, pick the five best songs and really sell it. Don't make me pick out the 3 songs i really like from each album for my "i'll exercise tomorrow" playlist.

Well, that was something. I hope we all learned a little bit about one of the lesser tier, quickly forgotten rock-hop bands of the last decade. I'll stick with that first album, thanks.