Review:

on 2011-08-19 CharlesMartel Said:

I don't think I have ever had such great difficulty in writing a review. Each time I sit down to start it, I listen to bits of the album to remind me of certain aspects of it, and thereby open up a completely new avenue of interpretation to explore. My views on the album are constantly evolving, it seems, and this has made the process of writing a review, which of necessity is a snapshot in time of my opinion, difficult. How can I tell you what my opinion is when it changes as I write the review? It is therefore worth looking at how my opinion has evolved to date, and where that leaves me now. This approach means that I am, effectively, reviewing on the hoof, and what I end up saying may not necessarily be what I started out with.

My first reaction was a purely musical one. The album is solid if unspectacular. It is the sort of thing you see down your local pub and have a damn good time getting pissed out of your head to. You leap around, drink six pints of Stella, come out with your ears ringing and wake up in the morning with a cannonball running round the inside of your skull and an indistinct sensation that the cat may have slept in your mouth. If there was one thing which stands out it is the vocals. Basically, the guy can't sing. But then he doesn't really try. He knows his limitations and stays within them. He half speaks the words, slows and quickens and adds a bit of extra stress on words when he needs to. At this stage, the Hold Steady come across as a sort of second rate Springsteen. At this point, six stars.

Then you listen to the lyrics. At first hearing, the familiar theme can be detected running through the album. This is about the Boys and Girls of the title and their experiences of late high school life. The closeness of the friendships, the experiences of love and experimentation with substances all point towards a faintly rose-tinted look back at your last year in high school before you all went your separate ways, college, work, whatever. This is typified by "Massive Nights" about some of the great times and experiences. By the end of this phase, you are actually beginning to think that "Boys and Girls in America" might even be a concept album of loosely connected stories of individual experiences. At this point, eight stars.

But just as you know that your high school days were not all fun and innocence, you are once again drawn back into the lyrics to try to make more sense of it through a greater understanding. This time you really listen. The result is an altogether darker and more depressing picture. Frustration and despair and confusion and an overwhelming sense of futility mix together. For instance, "Chips Ahoy" turns a single lucky event  a massive win on the horses  into a career for a girl who now knows the outcome of races before they begin. And what do they do to celebrate? They spend the whole of next week high.

What you hear is a succession of tales of individuals whose lives revolve around booze, drugs (especially) and what seems like desperate search for a meaningful relationship in a world where what is meaningful, the certainty of school and the personal relationships you have built up there, is about to be replaced with the unknown (what comes next). There is almost a sense of desperation to find something meaningful to hang onto when, in the title track, "Stuck Between Stations", the lyrics run 

"She was a really cool kisser
But she wasnt really much of a girlfriend."

And those individuals who are less able to cope end up suffering the worse. At this point, seven stars.

By now, you are beginning to feel ambivalent about the concept part of the concept album. Is this not just a theme? But you haven't finished yet. As you listen deeper you detect that there are references to certain characters - Charlemagne, Gideon and Holly. High school friends perhaps whose world is on the verge of falling apart. They are tied together by their relationship with the off screen persona of the vocalist. This quartet have gone through a lot and are now drifting apart. Their ability to retain, let alone recapture the earlier excitement of their lives is gone 

"We can't get as high as we got
On that first night"

goes the line in "First Night" as Holly breaks down and starts babbling about Jesus. She is the one who is taking it the hardest. At other times these characters recede from the front of the picture to be replaced by others whose lives are equally fruitless  the two characters in "Chill Out Tent" who overdose at a festival and end up hitting it off while recovering in the tent, and never see each other again. Yet ultimately you return to the concept. Yes there maybe others who feature, but this is essentially an album about a few people on the cusp of big changes in their lives, and the people who drift across their radar. This is about wiping the slate clean. One last round of excess before you have to grow up.

The more you listen to this album the more you realise that this is a sad and quite disheartening experience. Take for instance the juxtaposition of despair and triumph in "Party Pit" 

"She had the gun in her mouth.
She was shooting up at her dreams
When the chaperone said that we'd been crowned the king and the queen."

What negative, futile and uninspired lives these people lead. Where is the hope, the optimism and the joy? Where is the sense that this is the life you have, the only one you'll ever have and you have to make the most of it? None of this is there.

And yet because of this, this album is worth listening to over and over again. The guitar hooks are catchy and the music keeps your attention and your foot tapping without ever aspiring to be more than it can deliver. Each time you listen you get a new angle on what you thought you had come to understand. That keeps drawing you back to it, surely one of the hallmarks of a great album. At this point, nine stars.
Rating: 9/10