This year, Mexican Summer released Tastes the Broom, a mixtape primer of sorts for the Happy Jawbone Family Band. For the uninitiated on the Vermont-based psych pop collective's daunting amount of material, the compilation is pretty much required introductory listening. Since 2008, they've released dozens of songs via albums, tapes, and singles. Broom whittled the stack down to nine, offering a glimpse into what you may have been missing. The songs are lo-fi but giddily elaborate. "Martian Santa" has UFO noises, a horn section, and an autoharp. There's a bubblegum jaunt to "Don't Tread on the Museums of Your Youth", which feels appropriate for an outfit that calls itself a "Family Band." They're songs with catchy hooks, quirky sonic inclinations, and perhaps most significantly, a gleefully strange sense of humor.
But Happy Jawbone Family Band is not another collection of home-recorded songs that could end up on Taste the Broom Again: 2013-2017. From the beginning of their new self-titled endeavor, it's obvious just how much they've cleaned up their sound. Their instruments' clarity is instantly apparent. There's a reason for the change: Most of their older stuff was recorded in the band's basement; this one was made in Gary’s Electric Studio and was recorded by Jarvis Taveniere of Woods. The organ, jangling guitars, harmonies, and drums on opening track "Everybody Knows About Daddy" are hi-fi and crisp. But while there's nothing as raucously blown out as "Now Everybody Rock Like You Got AIDS", Happy Jawbone Family Band is still very much in step with their well-established and thoroughly documented aesthetic. "I'll Never Go Skin Deep Again" is introduced by a lone autoharp. There's a horn section on "Do You Want Me", plus several other elegantly implemented details, like echoing guitars, beatific backing voals, and a string section. The resulting song is as lush and ornate as most of Sufjan Stevens' mid-2000s fare.
It's tempting to lump this record in with other famous indie rock outfits, what with its elaborate arrangements and twee-leaning inclinations. A previous Pitchfork review referenced Elephant 6, which feels particularly applicable considering the new album's constantly shifting percussive sound and raggedly shouted vocals. Those aesthetic similarities only aid the band in delivering some of their best songs to date. "Can't You Hear Me Ticking" has a nice groove and the best use of "pow pow pow" in a chorus since James Murphy did it. There's a stately melodrama to the elaborate arrangements of "Han Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid'". "D-R-E-A-M-I-N'" is a sunny pop song that makes singing along a realistic possibility on the first listen—both the spell-along chorus and the hollered "ooohhh oh oh oh!" vocals chanted throughout. It's got brevity and enthusiastically belted melodies that could reasonably cross over on the radio. Also: It's a song about losing a girlfriend to a Miami-based furry and murderer named Rita.
Clearly, they've got a knack for ridiculous imagery, but their lyrical decisions never feel chaotic or petulant or obnoxious. All over the record, there are phrases that could be loaded with symbolism—like their pseudo-sexual phrasings on "Mr. Clean" ("I wanted to get you in my bathtub"). "Stay-at-Home Soldier" initially evokes psychedelic imagery a la "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds": "The city I live in lays covered in cream and ladies walk on crackers." Soon, though, the chorus feasibly sounds like an allusion to video game culture—staying at home, training dilligently, and receiving hollow rewards. And while their phrases are consistently abstract, certain symbols keep popping up: Lions, breakfast, baths, and guns are all referenced multiple times on different songs. It's hard to tell if there's symbolic or narrative utility in those specific words, but they create threads that run throughout the album—connections that might not necessarily mean anything, but offer a strange sort of continuity in an otherwise lyrically scattered universe.
After poring over their lyrics for a while, it begins to feel unreasonable and maybe even a bit irresponsible to try and "decode" or "understand" a Happy Jawbone Family Band record. Just when you think you've made a substantial observation, you begin to wonder if you're the guy at the party explaining the deeper meanings and symbolism behind kids' cereals. HJFB live in this in-between space, where they could be pouring their hearts out, or maybe they're just fucking with you. Their songs could be played in a theater with full string and horn sections, or they could just play them at somebody's house party. But who cares? When the songs are this fun, context is overrated.
