Having departed from indie-punk heroes Jawbreaker for the pastoral, poppier life with Jets to Brazil, Blake Schwarzenbach uncovered new potential in the energetic, ear-catching progressions of Orange Rhyming Dictionary. It was a running gag between me and my friends to dismiss the album with a simple, "Yeah, but it's no Jawbreaker"-- but it was just a joke; the promise of Dictionary's easy hooks was self-evident. In the span of just one album, though, what began as a simple joke became a grim portent; not only was the abysmal Four Cornered Night "not Jawbreaker", but it wasn't much of anything else, either. Night's impossibly bland pop banality was so cautious and inoffensive, so "common denominator", it stood a better chance at being elected for the senate than pleasing the fans.
If anyone had any doubts that Schwarzenbach blew his load on Orange Rhyming Dictionary, Perfecting Loneliness will likely only confirm your fears. It's a sad example of a few decent arrangements being recycled and regurgitated until, by the end of the album, there's nothing left but pre-chewed, partially digested gunk. There are few inspired moments, but the bright spots come mostly at the beginning, and afterwards, the album slips slowly into a seemingly infinite loop of predictable refrains and forced emotion. Try as I might, I couldn't avoid the sensation of feeling my opinion of the album decrementing in .1's and .2's with every passing track.
There's a little to look forward to, though: the first four tracks alone beat the pants off of the entirety of Four Cornered Night. "The Frequency" opens the album on a high note with a fascinating blend of Jets to Brazil's old, melodic power-pop and a hint of Built to Spill's searing instrumental prowess. Similarly, the tuneful malevolence of the title track is genuinely refreshing before turning full-circle to a lazy forgiveness. It's a single in the truest sense of the word-- single-handedly encompassing the breadth of pop attitudes, with all the requisite emotional highs and lows, in a league all by itself.
Each of those cuts swell past the five-minute mark, though even with my short attention span, it didn't bother me. What did is that Perfecting Loneliness' shameless filler material is similarly bloated with extended choral refrains and lengthy outros, ushering these weak, lifeless tracks past the realm of boredom and into true, four-cylindered wankery. "Autumn Walker", for example, nearly separates itself from homogeneity with an incredible grinding guitar swell and stirring chorus, but as three minutes of interest slowly drag into five minutes of broken-record repetition, its standout characteristics eventually get lost in the shuffle. Few bands can boast albums that don't contain at least some padding, but why someone would choose to drag their obvious missteps out to epic lengths is incomprehensible.
To round out the tragic self-importance of these slothful juggernauts, Schwarzenbach contributes his traditionally sincere, emotive vocal stylings. Usually, he's fine; a little overbearingly plaintive at times, but okay nonetheless. His lyrical ability has fallen off some over the years, though, and when lyrics like "God is dumb/ God is great/ Does he loves us all the same?/ Are we okay?" (from "Psalm") are combined with a delivery so pleadingly earnest it could go to camp. If these faults were isolated incidents, they wouldn't be as crippling, but too often here they hit all at once like Zangief-style triple-combos.
As Schwarzenbach sings on "The Frequency", "When the measure of your work/ Is the measure of your worth/ Then you'd better make it work." If Jets to Brazil heeded their own advice, they might bolster their slumping stock and try to recapture some of the invention of their debut rather than comfortably descend into pop mediocrity. Though numbers like "You're the One" and "Cat Heaven" give Perfecting Loneliness the dubious distinction of being less painful than the dental academy root-canal action of Four Cornered Night, this isn't the return to form any of us had hoped for.
