There comes a time for bands with clout to match their ambitions when their sound/look/lyrical preoccupations become open to parody. If you were to sketch the Menzingers, for example, you’d set the four of them against the Philadelphia skyline in jean jackets and flannel shirts, etch some words about better understanding your place in the world beneath their feet and then set about screaming them at the top of your lungs.
That formula could potentially be applied to a thousand other groups, yet it fits the Menzingers more closely because they’re better at executing it than almost all of their peers. In the hands of Greg Barnett and Tom May, their twin vocalists, these basic blueprints come alive because of those great intangibles: heart and soul.
If ‘Rented World’, the band’s fourth album, just missed the top rungs it aimed for, then ‘After The Party’ grabs hold early and refuses to let go. It’s a record destined to be viewed as a career waypoint and perhaps mentioned in the same breath as their breakthrough, ‘On The Impossible Past’.
From the opening throes of Tellin’ Lies it’s clear that Barnett and May have one eye on the past and another on the ground under their feet right now. Throughout they seek to articulate what it means to accept that you’re growing older and understand that tipping over into your 30s doesn’t mean that, you guessed it, the party’s over.
The balance between the pair’s writing has never been this keenly maintained, with shared motifs and themes running through one another’s songs. The result is a cohesive piece that doesn’t skimp on ambition, from the barroom lament of Black Mass to the interlocking tales of Julie from the Wonder Bar, who pops up on both Lookers and the deliriously effective Charlie’s Army. May’s work here is perhaps his finest to date, with Thick As Thieves and House on Fire operating with melodic finesse to match their lyrical poignancy.
Barnett, meanwhile, remains a bottomless pit of huge choruses and powerful, throat-shredding middle eights. He is the band’s great romantic and here he steps into a nostalgic minefield, emerging at the other side without a scratch on him. The kid who wrote Time Tables, a vital link between ‘Chamberlain Waits’, the band’s 2010 album, and the present day, is now a ‘grown up’ who refuses to let his wistful impulses die at the side of the road.
Barnett finds fresh mileage in documenting the desire to escape routine (Midwestern States), returning to former haunts (Lookers), running into old flames (Bad Catholics) and sums the whole record’s worldview up on the glorious title track, which is a paean to basement show liberation. He embraces classic rock conventions and the specificity of explicitly stating places and names (Julie, the Walt Whitman Bridge back to Philly, the importance of a last name on Bad Catholics) and finds new freedom in some old moves.
Taking on the expectations of others and the grandest traditions of American rock music is no easy task for one album, but ‘After The Party’ is gutsy, robust and not short on hard-earned advice. It’s up to the challenge. We know what the Menzingers are about in the same way we know what Springsteen is about. You’ve seen it before and you’ll see it again. The important thing is that you’ll want to see it again.
The Menzingers Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Tue April 18 2017 - SOUTHAMPTON Talking Heads
Wed April 19 2017 - LONDON KOKO
Thu April 20 2017 - MANCHESTER Manchester Academy 2
Fri April 21 2017 - BRISTOL Bierkeller
Sat April 22 2017 - GLASGOW Oran Mor
Sun April 23 2017 - DERBY Venue - Derby
Mon April 24 2017 - NORWICH Epic Studios
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