Howler America Give Up

Last year, Howler’s This One’s Different EP sent a few waves through the British press, most notably NME; they may have also impressed anyone who saw The Vaccines headline a show before Christmas (Howler served as support), particularly those looking for back-to-basics guitar rock to make them believe that rock is not dead. Picking up right where they left off, Howler’s debut full-length America Give Up opens with a strong, unaccompanied guitar riff before being joined by a loose beat, clapped and drummed together, before singer/guitarist Jordan Gatesmith quickly reaches a chorus that more enthusiastic reviewers will not hesitate to call “anthemic,” due in part to lyrics about “drinking in the afternoon” and the declaration that he’d “never want to waste your time.”  And waste our time is one thing Howler certainly does not do, with the three minute opener Beach Sluts concluding with no bridge and a brief outro, a shape of things to come for the rest of the 11 track, 32 minute album. When the follow-up Back to the Grave begins, Gatesmith’s striking resemblance to William and Jim Reid in both vocals and guitar playing becomes apparent. Both trade fuzz for easier listening, but with this realization, the album’s tone has been set: We have guitars placed highly in the mix, carefree tales of parties and slightly more careful tales of young lust as the only lyrical themes, all backed by a tight but standard rhythm section.

If you like your music bold, experimental, innovative and, in some way or another, unique, you can probably stop reading; the “more accessible, less-noisy Jesus and Mary Chain” impression described in the paragraph above pretty much sums up the album. But while Howler is not going to change our idea of what music can sound like, they are not a guilty pleasure band either. They do the standard rock and roll thing better than many of the “saviors” of yesteryear, and while they may not be saviors either, they do have their merits. The guitar work is genuinely catchy on multiple occasions, and there is a thicker production especially on the middle three songs that bring out the Jesus and Mary Chain comparison, with Too Much Blood sounding especially like that band's early material.  

But for every brick Howler puts on top, the foundation rocks a little bit. Too many songs are without a bridge, and while this is covered up fairly well by their brevity, it amplifies feelings of repetition. Indeed, the best songs are the ones that contain a bridge or a solo to spice up the songwriting. And although the three tracks in the middle of the album display a shoegaze influence in their production to help hold off feelings of repetition, they serve more as a treatment than a cure; these three songs themselves have varying degrees of effectiveness. Pythagorean Fearem in particular lacks the enjoyable melodies of the other songs, and the attempt to keep things interesting grows tired quicker than it should. They wisely place the semi-ballad Told You Once (repackaged from This One’s Different, and still Howler’s best song) right after the noisier songs to further provide a sense of variation and progress, but the back end of the album mostly reminds us that the Reid brothers kept Psychocandy interesting by varying their songwriting and subject matter while Gatesmith often seems content to be an imitator instead of a successor, resorting to similar structures and melodies and telling familiar stories in every song.

Indeed, Free Drunk contains the lyric “it’s a story that I think you know… I don’t even give a shit anymore,” an apt summary of what America Give Up has to offer. It’s not that it’s a bad story, it’s just that, as he says later in the song, “it’s the same song every day,” and it gets tired after a while. Ironically, it is precisely that self-awareness (or to a skeptic, self-parody), that make Free Drunk effective. And while the skeptic might be correct, he need not ruin the fun. Even if this sound has been done more successfully, the reverse is also true.