Grace Hotel
  Overall rating: ++

Album Reviews

~ Christopher Anderson

HIGH POINTS: Mermelstein and the Disappearing Sink, Your Name.  LOW POINTS: Tell Mama, Come On, Joan, The Short, Happy Life of Henrietta.

Even crazier than before, in some ways, as they're now branching out to just as many syles and even hitting into some sound collages and such things, but somehow I'm MUCH less thrilled by Dad than I was before. In places it sounds forced. I dunno. It doesn't have this nonstop energy mixed in with endless ideas that the last album had, and too many songs just sort of sit on a mediocre level, a few highlights and a couple pieces of shit here and there. Which make it an extremely boring album to type up a review for, but what the hell. As long as I don't have to mention the filler like "Sea Shanty of an Icelandic Midwife" (which is actually kinda interesting on first listen only) and such or listen to some of the lesser tracks on here, I think I'll be alright.

First the bad news. Everything Is Beautiful And Nothing Hurt went out with a bang of energy in "Social Studies", but "Come On, Joan" really does little for me at all, drifting far too close to generic punk for my liking, complete with a dull riff and forgettable lyrics. "The Short, Happy Life of Henrietta" starts out good enough, slow acoustic strumming set behind a spoken rant about how singing about pain and troubles is really pointless and how it would be better if he could sing about trees. Unfortunately after that it ends up as a set of pointless screaming that drags on and on. "Tell Mama" is the worst offender here, the only track I'd label as truly awful, trying to recapture the sing-along style of "This Train", but not even coming close, turning into a really annoying tune.

For some brighter news, "You" is a pretty catchy tune, recapturing some of the truly tense moments of the debut without finding itself too serious. The experiment of "Mermelstein and the Disappearing Sink" is a huge success, though, the strongest moment on the album. A really distorted guitar and some backing percussion are the only musical instruments in use, as the spotlight of the song is taken by a collage of three or four different conversations. If you pay attention to the actual dialogue too much, you'll find that it is a bit preachy by BWA standards, but even the one where the guy just reads off Christian bumper stickers ("Heavenly Metal", "Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven", "No 666" etc.) stands as quite entertaining. "Your Name" is Breakfast With Amy's "Within You, Without You", more shoegazer-styled, but still with those "WYWY" eastern sort of drum beats. And it still sounds like its own song, and not like a derivative bore.

"You're Soaking In It" is knda mediocre until it hits the "Have you listened to a word I've said?" section, which has a fine vocal melody to hold it up. It's a fantastic moment, and there aren't that many moments here I'd call fantastic. I'm not even sure what happened to the band. AMG lists a favorable review for this, so maybe there isn't much of a 'problem' at all. I personally would have hoped for a better follow-up to one of the best punk albums ever than this, which isn't bad by any means, but certainly a huge disappointment to such a promising debut.

~ Robert Grazer

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