Irony is kind of like butter. If something seems too dull or sugary, you put some butter on it to give its taste some semblance of body and depth. The butter tastes good, so you put on more butter. Soon, whatever tastes accompany the butter cease to matter. You just want more of that butter. Yummy, yummy butter. You refuse to acknowledge the value of anything that is non-buttery, insisting that it's trite and unsophisticated. "Sugar is for kids," you shout, "I want my goddamn butter!" You begin to hate the sugar-eaters in all their smug simplicity. Everything you eat, and everything you cook, simply must have butter. It becomes a way of life.
But it's not long before things start to go awry. Your friends get sick of you always forcing them to eat your buttery treats. While you can't get enough of it, it makes them feel sick and heavy. But you don't care-- they just don't understand the complex texture and full, rich body of butter.
Friendless, you begin to sink into a state of depression. All those years immersed in butter have finally caught up with you, and its heaviness is beginning to wear on you. You've gained hundreds of pounds, and you can slowly feel your arteries hardening. Alone, bloated, and miserable, you die. You fucking die.
Irony hasn't been clinically proven to lead to arteriosclerosis, but it does hold true that it's best when used sparingly and with great skill. Quasi has always been dear to me because they're one of the few bands that manages to lay the irony on thick without being too dark or pretentious. On Featuring "Birds", the juxtaposition of Sam Coomes' massive pop hooks and his bleak lyrical outlook seemed to blend together perfectly-- like a goofy-faced clown telling you that have lung cancer. Except even more perfect.
The greatest part about Featuring "Birds" was that even if Coomes had been singing about happy elves prancing through fields of tall, green grass, the album would have rocked. The songs were just that good. Thankfully, the lyrics spread a message we could all relate to: life blows. But on the record's follow-up, 1999's Field Studies, the message remained unchanged, and without the brilliant, catchy, concise songs to back them up, the lyrics lost a lot of their punch. Without the songs, all you're left with is shtick. And shtick gets old pretty fast, as proven by the infuriatingly uneven The Sword of God.
Like most bands that don't suck, Quasi is at their best when they sound like themselves. Yeah, I know, I know, bands should try to branch out in new directions and all that. But when a band succeeds in exploring new directions after already mastering one sound (which is beyond rare), they generally do so by bringing the better elements of their old sound into the new mix. If Quasi were to record a sprawling guitar rock album with hooks the likes of those on Featuring "Birds," I would applaud my ass off. But this is not the case.
Indeed, the best parts of The Sword of God are the parts that embrace Coomes' ability to write driving pop hooks. "It's Raining" features his trademark Roxichord swagger and a memorable, catchy melody. This is good. Sure, it sounds like the stuff on Featuring "Birds," but this is compensated for by the fact that it's just really, really good. Slightly less infectious but similarly successful is "A Case of No Way Out," a darker, more complex song that makes nice use of trademark indie rock boy-girl vocal arrangements without slipping into cloying inanity.
These two songs both have their roots firmly planted in Quasi's pessimistic pop song tradition. Unfortunately, the efforts made by the band to expand their oeuvre on The Sword of God just fall flat. Long-winded instrumental passages, extended exploration of new instruments, and more bird noises do not a good record make, and The Sword of God makes this all too evident. Exploring new territory only pays off if you're comfortable with it and you have quality material to back it up. And that's usually not the case here.
Still, one has to appreciate that Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss are still trying. If some of the new directions explored on The Sword of God had really great songs behind them, the resulting album could have been fantastic. But in keeping with the band's general outlook on life, their records just keep getting worse. Where's the butter in that?
