The band's from Austin, Texas' crowded, hyper-self-conscious scene rather than that brewery-scented city in Wisconsin, and it's probably named after the song Glenn Sutton wrote (popularized by Jerry Lee Lewis and covered by Rod Stewart) about beer-mongering leading to loserdom. Its scattershot Barsuk debut, consisting of a refangled version of their 2004 self-produced debut plus four tracks overseen by Spoon's Jim "The Other" Eno, will probably leave subscribers to the identity-myth feeling jerked around.
Shouldn't bands have "a sound"? Not necessarily, reckon, especially if their talents are all spastic and confidently roaming. Shouldn't albums "cohere"? Not necessarily, reckon, especially if the band presumably feels that certain tracks are better served with vastly different vocal treatments and instrument tones. But check out the ride provided by Trying to Never Catch Up's turbo-jalopy: You get three initial songs of Franz Ferdinstrokes suped up with the synths that the Faint suped up after the Rentals' suping up of the Cars, and that's okay, until one notices the third song ("Hellodrama") suddenly doesn't shy away from lyrical dumdingers such as "You keep on doing that thing to me/ It's like you're dragging me down into your disease, yeah/ Can't you see you're bringing me to my knees, yeah?"
Fourth song the ominously titled "Selling Yourself Short" yanks the electro tincture and settles for some piano and horns over some (more) fine Strokesness. At least one version of the album peaks during this track's first three minutes, despite the generic aftertaste and the hammer recklessly handed to critics with the line "Please don't make it worse with false sincerity." The finale's counting from one to five, and subsequent scatting (a motif that'll get abused by album's end) combine to form a most unpromising resolution to the song's indie-vamp breakdown.
By now the listener wonders how much these unabashed capitalists (in interviews) are craving (via Barsuk) some Death Cab for Cutie coattails. Among my most boorish and indefensible opinions is this stinker: "Straight females are the only people who have any reason to listen to Death Cab for Cutie." Even though Gibby Haynes and Glenn Danzig represent the (equally silly) opposite of Gibbard's gummy courtship persona, they seem to have more to teach us about how soul meets body?
But wait: Suddenly this band with three songwriters begins to generate a singular vision, as the next few songs suggest Rufus Wainwright backed by an indie rock ensemble. But wait: Then they do committee-penned rock slumming as savvy acoustic singer-songwriter lonesomeness for a number! Then they do mild art-rock. Then emo gets a toss. Then they close with two bouncy ones reminiscent of Madness and Ben Folds being tumble-dried. These 12 songs are probably big fun for the band to play out, but the whole cocky mélange never rises elsewhere to the heights of its overwrought and cheese-risking (in the good way) midpoint "The Jeopardy of Contentment", and even that one gives listeners prosey, almost parental pause: "We have to fess up and face the facts the best we can/ Or live with the consequence." Effervescence and freshness are so doggone dissimilar. Thus, this quartet's assured sound-and-fury is perplexingly difficult to care about.
