Let's Wrestle; Goofy Guitar Pop For Now Nerds

Let's Wrestle - Nursing Home 

Pure fun is the perfect way to describe Let's Wrestle's new album, "Nursing Home." At first glance, the faults are apparent. Perhaps, it is a little too silly, a little too sloppy, and a little too schlocky brimming over with silliness and inside jokes, the kind that all the nerds in the room can relate to. Yet it is these qualities that endearingly make it a great album.
Like their fellow travelers on the jokey, but smart indie highway, Boat, Let's Wrestle knows how to have fun with a clever turn of phrase. An earlier song, "Music is My Girlfriend" took a tired cliche and made it seem new again. In a nutshell, this technique is the genius of the band. While "Nursing Home" never reaches the same heights, it is a fine attempt. The band is a little tighter, the jokes are more coherent, and the production values a hair better.
While not attempting anything as virtuosic as the new Boat album, Let's Wrestle should be able to bring their vision to a wider audience. They often remind me of a less obscure, less punk, Onion Flavored Rings, not as appreciated as they should be, but still capable of world domination because they have such smart, funny lyrics. Perhaps, in a world that appreciates a pop song that sloppily wears its all-too-fragile heart on its sleeve.
Songs like "In the Suburbs" with its muddy, turned down Dinosaur Jr. guitar lines and lyrics mentioning "dinner with my mother and playing computer games all night" are sure winners. Piano-driven numbers like "I Am Useful," in which the narrator wonders why she left because he is so useful, with "a degree in bionic physics" and ... "a three bedroom house in Chiswick." These are the details that make "Nursing Home" fun. Well that, and catchy music. Even slight missteps like "Bad Mammaries," with its tired cougar storyline get an A for  effort if one can get past the stale concept. People have done so much worse, while trying to be witty; Bloodhound Gang comes to mind.
If "Let's Wrestle" continues down this road, a completely solid pop-perfect album is in their reach. They have crafted one of the most enjoyable of the year, if not the best. "Nursing Home" is the perfect record for visiting your inner nerd, the one with a special affection for sweet, goofy, guitar pop.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contractions: Henry Standing Bear's Ethical Code

Image
I recently finished watching the last season of Longmire , a show that I believe only got better when it moved to Netflix. A & E cancelled it, despite good ratings, because it did not directly appeal to the 18-35 age demographic. The writing and plot development improved as the show started focusing more on major themes and story lines and not story-of-the-week subplots. While the show's general premise is typical cop show fare, the strong characterization and settings give the show a primacy over similar procedurals. While I enjoyed the show, I never got around to reading the books even though I watched dutifully for six seasons. Once I started reading The Cold Dish , I realized how hard it will be not to binge the book series. The books are a treat. Craig Johnson's prose is punchy, and the characters are even better realized. Walt Longmire's love for Rainier beer and obscure literary metaphors, as well as other character's predilections and habits, become crys...
Read more

Do you remember huH Magazine?

Image
The other day when I was writing the "Track This" for Jawbox's "Cooling Card," something jogged my memory about music magazines I had read in my formative years, particularly those published while I was still in High School. Many, if not most, of them are gone now. They gave way to blogs and online publications. These include zines like Flipside , which covered mainstream and underground bands -- they also had some of my favorite columnists of all time, Punk Planet , which ventured further into Indie rock as it progressed, and MRR , which is still going strong. The magazines that I read often included Alternative Press and Magnet , as well as Ray Gun Publishing's huH which turned me on to a ton of great music because it included a cd with each issue that served as a sampler for what had been released that month, divided by genre. While other magazines did this, huH undoubtedly was more inclusive in the types of bands these cds covered. In fact, these col...
Read more

Cal Smith: "So Long, Country Bumpkin"

Image
Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...
Read more