When we last left our heroes, the Blood Brothers were poised on the brink of success, torn between unpredictable hardcore stylings and a more melodic, less tortured application of their squealy double-frontman lineup, as best exemplified by "Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck". They went into in the studio with the engineer from previous LP Crimes along with Fugazi's Guy Picciotto to record their follow-up, releasing a meager EP in the meantime to prolong the suspense-- what would be their next move? Where might Picciotto take them?
Turns out that instead of choosing between seducing or screaming at their audience, they found a much less interesting middle ground. Young Machetes is half metal band, half high-school musical, with unpredictable transitions, two-minute songs stretched to the limit of composition, and a few pop concessions that pale in comparison to the softer side of Crimes, bones tossed to a mainstream audience by a band that's far too strange to be this famous. Seriously: The sweaty industrial heave of "Set Fire to the Face on Fire" is a rousing opener, but given Johnny Whitney's newfound inclination to sing instead of scream, it sounds like a marching band swapping their instruments for food processors while being fronted by Steven Tyler. This is nothing compared to "Camouflage, Camouflage", which juxtaposes a sputtering rhythm and rapid-fire speak-singing with a swooning blue-spotlight vocal/piano solo from Whitney-- for the listener who likes to mosh and then cry immediately afterward-- or "You're the Dream Unicorn," a Freddie Mercury nightmare that matches an impressive hardcore breakdown with a multi-tracked vocal cavalcade all wailing (you guessed it) "you're my dream unicorn" at once. There's no way these guys don't have a sense of humor about their music, and for getting as far as they have and making a profoundly weird record that someone in some record store will put in the "Metal" section, I admire them.
But that doesn't mean I want to return to anything on Young Machetes. The heavier quick-change songs push several different buttons at unexpected moments, but the more straightforward songs, the ones that should glue the record together, flounder. "Spit Shine Your Black Clouds" is a sassy staccato strut that sounds like a youth culture-co-opting facewash jingle, and "Lazer Life", an electric piano boogie that tries to teach the kids in the pit jazz hands before tossing in its happy-shiny chorus and instrument-smashing bridge together like a child clipping the ends from jigsaw pieces to make the puzzle fit.
There's a few lifelines for old fans, however. The guitars wheeze and rattle with kinetic energy in a way I thought I'd only hear from Fugazi, but it's a shame that these moments, like in "Rat Rider" or especially "Huge Gold AK-47", are consigned to the end of the record. It's not that the band has slowed down or softened, but the songs' shock-value structures often diffuse the album's best moments, and wider sidesteps like "1, 2, 3, 4, Guitars" use a bigger palette to no effect, with a dub-like bassline on which Whitney and Jordan Billie take the mumble train to Pointlessville. "Street Wars/Exotic Foxholes" is a notable exception, with a deep bass strut that brings a sudden but subtle surprise with a subdued and almost inspirational chorus (with a bassoon!). Young Machetes aims for huge moments like this with every song, but there's plenty of albums that were uncompromising enough to combine metal and hardcore with whatever else necessary, including pop (from Angel Dust to The Shape of Punk to Come-- both of which this band has probably listened to), with one big difference: They knew how to write a song before they experimented with the song's constructs. I'm not convinced the Blood Brothers ever did.
