Listening to Japandroids makes me think about Jenga. You have the most basic elements (guitar, drums, and vocals, in this case) delicately stacked on top of each other. The raw materials are so simple, but the more it builds in increments, the higher the stakes become; each move ratchets up the tension partly because you know the whole thing is constantly in danger of buckling under itself at any time.
Likewise, the best Japandroids songs are always threatening to topple over; singer/guitarist Brian King struggles to reach his highest notes, and drummer David Prowse pounds the drums frantically, like they might be running away from him. They teeter forever on a precipice separating transcendence from pure cheese—one of their best songs turns on the cathartic refrain “I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls”—but it’s sold with life-changing intensity. As a lyricist, King takes you to that precipice, invites you to look over, even gives you the smallest nudge—and then he catches you.
Which is why the advance single to their latest record “Near to the Wild Heart of Life” is so disappointing. “Near to the Wild Heart of Life” is too perfect. The grit on King’s voice is gone; the guitar is too cleanly mixed; the drums don’t hit as hard. This is a band whose second album is literally titled Celebration Rock, but this song’s version of a lyrical clincher—“I used to be good but now I’m bad”—clunks off the ear like a tennis ball against a wall.
For the most part, Near to the Wild Heart of Life sticks to the Japandroids M.O. King still writes about drinking, about girls, about the love-hate relationship between himself and the idea of a hometown. King claims Vancouver, although things have gotten slightly more complicated as the band has tacked between Toronto, New Orleans, and Mexico City, taking a three-year hiatus of touring beginning in 2013. This much is reflected in the rollicking autobiographical travelogue “North East South West,” which is one of King’s sharpest songs on the album lyrically. But the mix is too pristine, the acoustic guitar too loud, and it lacks the bite of their best songs.
More disheartening is the sapping of King’s sense of humor. He was often funny in a straightforward way, like Jonathan Richman if he weren’t a teetotaler: “Don’t we have anything to live for?/Well of course we do/But ‘til they come true/We’re drinking,” went a highlight from “The Nights of Wine and Roses.” On “Wet Hair” he gave us the magnificent “Must get to France so we can French kiss some French girls.” There are no similar laugh lines on Near to the Wild Heart of Life, which relies heavily on cliches and platitudes minus the wink or the grin.
Take “Arc of Bar,” a seven-minute story song that is the centerpiece of the record and defiantly unlike anything else in the band’s catalog. But it doesn’t build to a hearty climax, a hallmark of the band. It just lumbers around, as King places hoary cliché on top of hoary cliché about “hustlers, whores” and “the jokers doing the dealing” and “a mistress, to some a muse…for her love, I would help the devil.” For a band that lives by its ability to slam-dunk a moment of catharsis, this song is the ultimate heat-check.
The spruced up modern-rock sound of a song like “True Love and a Free Life of Free Will” has the hollow appeal of “real” rock and roll bands like Foo Fighters or the Black Keys. (King sounds awfully like Dave Grohl on “Midnight to Morning.”) The band that playfully riffed on Thin Lizzy or sustained one riff for five minutes while proclaiming “after her/I quit girls,” now sounds like MOR. It’s a testament to King’s inherent likability and the band’s still-effortless knack for memorable melodies that this album isn’t as big a disappointment as it may seem. They still have the discipline to keep things at eight songs only, and they can still reel off a sparkler like “No Known Drink or Drug,” an incandescent song that flares with the ending “…could ever hold a candle to your love.”
King and Prowse have sustained critical and fan love for eight years now. Both seem to be comfortable in their roles as rock veterans, with a loyal fanbase, a label that allows them years between records. Who am I to begrudge artists who’ve matured? Perhaps it’s age, experience, a new record label, the inevitable artistic instinct to want to switch things up a little, but whatever the reason, Near to the Wild Heart of Life ultimately lacks the urgency of the band’s best music. The tower hasn’t collapsed, but it’s starting to wobble.
