Album Review: "Close Calls With Brick Walls" by Andrew W.K.

ehehehahaha

So in my last Andrew W.K. review, I lamented what I perceived to be a dropoff in Mr. Wilkes-Krier's recorded output since 2003's The Wolf. I said this, foolishly, not even considering the fact that the man has indeed released a couple records since 2003 - 2006's Close Calls With Brick Walls, and a collection of J-Pop covers in 2008 (dubbed The Japan Covers). Like the ignoramus I am, I shrugged these records off, considering them a little too obscure to take seriously - I mean, both were only released in Japan, for God's sake! Where am I going to find them, being the pigheaded American I am? Hell, Close Calls doesn't even have an Allmusic grade! How am I supposed to know what to think of it??

Of course then I remembered this whole "downloading music" deal and found Close Calls online lickety-split. And then, upon listening to it, the breadth of my idiocy truly came to light. Because it just might be the man's finest record!

And yes, that might be a mighty claim to make, considering the now-classic status of I Get Wet (I'm not joking there). But despite the non-stop fun of that album, Close Calls just sounds better to me. For one, it's more diverse - where I Get Wet has a pretty consistent, straightforward formula of "gut-busting super-processed testosterone-rock" with an occasional dance beat or piano intro thrown in for good measure, Close Calls is absolutely all over the map. You've got full-blown piano solos ("Dr. Dumont"), bass-driven poetry slams ("Golden-Eyed Dog"), goofy techno-pop ("Pushing Drugs"), jazzy incantations ("Slam John Against A Brick Wall"), dark guitar riff-fests ("Hand On The Place," "Mark My Grace") - the list goes on and on. And not only that - I might as well get this out of the way - there are no party songs on this album. Oh sure, there are the usual odes to debauchery in "Las Vegas" and "I Wanna See You Go Wild," but there are no songs with the word "party" in them. Not a single one.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Not to worry, though! The old Andrew W.K. hasn't disappeared under a veil of bizarro experimentation - if anything, he's just gotten more manic. "Not Going To Bed," the first single off the record, takes the party-hearty formula of I Get Wet and turns it on its ear; it's a song about staying up all night and never ever going to sleep, ever, taking the message of "Party Hard" to its logical conclusion. It's easily the loopiest, funniest, and maybe even catchiest single he's ever put out. And thankfully, Close Calls retain's Andrew's wonderful gift for epic anthems - "You Will Remember Tonight," "When I'm High," and closer "The Moving Room" should be enough to convince anybody that Mr. W.K.'s still got it (or at least, he hadn't lost it by 2006). But even the tracks most similar to I Get Wet are a hell of a lot weirder, not to mention the fact that - get this - he actually sings in his normal singing voice most of the time! And hey, his voice is pretty good! It's nice to know that he can actually move beyond the guttural power-grunt of his first two albums without sacrificing his aggressively happy personality.

Hell, even the lyrics get crazier, something I did not expect. Songs like "One Brother" - with a melody that would suit any of his usual party-till-you-puke lyrics - starts off with "I can roll out of sync with the beat of a rink / 'cause I roll on my own terms / I don't need any sisters anymore / I already ate my fill of worms." I definitely get a quasi-psychedelic vibe from Close Calls, especially from the two opening tracks that don't sound like Andrew W.K. at all - the unusual ballad "I Came For You" and the synth-driven dirge of "Close Calls With Bal Harbour," a song that wouldn't sound out of place on the second side of Ween's Quebec. It's only until you reach "Not Going To Bed" that you realize that, despite his newfound weirdness, this is still Andrew W.K.

So maybe Close Calls won't appeal to Andrew W.K. diehards who swear by his first two records. I don't know. What I do know is that Close Calls feels like a real step forward, and was probably one of the weirdest and most entertaining records released by a mainstream artist in 2006, which makes it all the sadder that he hasn't released a record in the US since The Wolf. It also, unfortunately, means that in the US Andrew W.K. may well be remembered as a one-hit wonder who only replicated the same formula with The Wolf only to shuffle off into obscurity, which is a shame. Close Calls proves to me that the guy is much more than a novelty - hell, I Get Wet already proved that to me, but this one is so much more diverse and well-produced that it leaves no room for doubt. Every bit of goofy weirdness, Wagnerian bombast and hard-rock psychedelics that bubbled under the surface of his first two records finally comes to a head on Close Calls, and it is quite a glorious thing.

I also have managed to come across The Japan Covers recently, which I haven't listened to all the way through yet. Maybe I'll review it in the future. I know Andrew apparently planned Close Calls to be the first in a trilogy of new records, ending with Young Lord in 2007, but that never came to pass. A shameful shame. He does, apparently, have an all-piano album coming out sometime this year. It's good to know the guy's still active. We all need a little joy in our lives, don't we?



LATE EDIT: This review was very nicely linked to on Andrew W.K.'s website. I don't know how they found this blog and/or the review, but thank you SO MUCH to whoever posted it! It's crazy! (If it was actually Andrew W.K. himself, hotdamn, THANKS EVEN MORE)

Album Review: "I Get Wet" by Andrew W.K.

Don't worry folks. It's just pig's blood.

If you want to have a big rock 'n roll party hit in the 2000s - one that will be played ad nauseum by irony-loving college students at parties for years to come - logic would dictate that it would have to be big, loud, and ridiculously campy. At least that's been the trend: the Darkness' "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl," the Electric Six's "Danger! High Voltage" and the Killers' entire discography* are big fat attention-getters all. In the age of r'n'b and rap's dominance, rock 'n roll seems to appeal more to mainstream tastes when it's presented as novelty - a fun, goofy diversion reminding folks of a bygone era. (Of course, this is also the decade of Coldplay, so maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Andrew W.K., more than anybody in the world, is guilty of propagating this trend. Once the absolutely insane "Party Hard" hit America's airwaves, the world was never quite the same. It was one of those rare songs that appealed to critics and jocks alike - critics heard it as an utterly bloated parody of macho party rock, and jocky dudes just viewed it as a badass party anthem. This, of course, raised the eternal question: was this "Andrew W.K" just a big joke, or did he take this whole party-hearty persona seriously?

The answer - surprise surprise! - is somewhere in between. W.K., clearly, understands that what he is doing is ridiculous, and yet his dedication to making his ridiculous music as infectious and funny as possible obviously shows that he views it as much more than an ironic joke. The way I see it, the guy wants to make party anthems that are as funny as they are sing-alongable, and I Get Wet is a success on these terms. Most critics will tell you that every song on this album is essentially the same - they're all adrenaline-fueled, processed-guitar-filled, shouted anthems encouraging constant partying and beer guzzling. And for the most part, this is true, and it isn't a bad thing because the formula is fun as a nugget - it's the kind of album that begs to be blasted at parties. What makes the songs funny, though, is the way they're presented; almost every song on the album kicks off with a goofy 80's styled non-rock instrument intro (the cheesy horns in the title track, the Casio keyboard in "Ready to Die," the epic synth strains in "Don't Stop Living In The Red") and dependably kicks into high gear with lightning-fast beats, giant guitars and W.K.'s constantly howled lyrics. It's kind of hard to take this music 100 percent seriously when the intros are so self-consciously silly.

Maybe the funniest aspect of I Get Wet is Andrew W.K.'s personality - throughout the album, you get the impression that this guy just wants to get the fuck down and have a good time, and absolutely NOTHING is going to stop him. It doesn't even matter if he isn't singing about partying; while you might expect "Ready to Die" to be some dark metallic epic or "She Is Beautiful" to be a power ballad, both burst through with the same irrepressibly positive energy as the rest of the album. Hearing W.K. shout lyrics like "I never knew girls existed like you / but now that I do, I'd really like to get to know you" with full frat-boy sincerity is just very very funny.

I Get Wet is a very pop-oriented album, though. Beyond the frat-rock novelty, there are some really fun, catchy songs here that aren't simply "Party Hard" rewrites - "Girls Own Love," with its hilariously misogynist lyrics ("You've got to make her understand / That you are a man"), seems almost like a stab at power-pop, and the over-the-top "Got To Do It," a synth-horn-laden tribute to overcoming all of life's obstacles, might be one of my favorites on the album. He even attempts bizarre electro-pop on "Fun Night," which makes a lot more sense when you hear it than it does on paper. Despite these fun little diversions, however, the overall feeling of the album is still epic party-rock, and what makes I Get Wet so damned special is its positivity. There is no angst, no depression, no darkness to be found here; it's just one big party. "Party Hard", despite its slight over-playedness, might be one of my favorite songs of this decade just because it is THE perfect party anthem - fast, incomprehesibly loud, and funny as hell. If I am drunk at a good party, I will not stop bitching until this song is played. Pure and simple.

This album came out in 2001, but Andrew W.K.'s dream of one big, long, stupid party is still something we need in 2008. I'm a little upset that his output petered out after 2003's The Wolf (which I still haven't heard) because this kind of formula is something I imagine would be a lot of fun to hear again every few years, not unlike AC/DC or the Ramones. In the age of Mars Volta and Muse, the concept of one big ol' party sounds more and more appealing. Hell, it's always appealing.

Bottom line: if you don't like Andrew W.K. GROW A FUCKING PAIR YOU PANSY-MAN, THIS SHIT IS KILLER!!!