Between breathless early accolades, inking a deal with Rough Trade on the strength of a five-song EP, and frontman Jordan Gatesmith’s not-so-advanced age, you could spend a lot of time talking about Minneapolis’ Howler before ever getting around to their music. In the two years since America Give Up—their slack-inflected, Strokes-damaged debut LP—the young Gatesmith’s grown even more grizzled-beyond-his-years, and the band’s gone looser, more ramshackle, cleaving most of the taut turn-of-the-millenium NYC from their sound. World of Joy, Howler’s sophomore set, arrives with hardly a fraction of America Give Up’s hype. This time around, without all the focus on Howler’s extramusical hooks, it’s easier to hear a record like World of Joy for what it really is: half-an-hour of antic, raucous rock’n’roll, no more, no less.
Cheap cigs, cheaper gin, mornings in bed and afternoons on the couch: this is Howler country. But while just a few years have passed since Gatesmith’s golden boy phase, the guy’s aged rapidly: much of World of Joy finds him looking askance at, y’know, “society, maaan,” and he’s not so sure he likes what he sees. Ramonesy yearner “Don’t Wanna” finds Gatesmith rattling off a list of things he urges you to opt out of, if you’re so inclined: “you don’t have to listen to the Smiths if you don’t want to,” he moans, unleashing raspberries at his onetime-labelmates minutes after a none-too-subtle reminder that “we’re being sold.” Jittery opener “Al’s Corral” is similarly indifferent, as Gatesmith rattles off a long list of things he doesn’t want to do. And World of Joy’s title track plays like one long shrug; over a dour, intensifying buzz, Gatesmith repeatedly mutters “world of joy” with as much apparent glee as the counter guy at Panera talking your mom through her You-Pick-Two. For most of the album Gatesmith’s slumped-shouldered, “oh, great, this again” outlook permeates like bongsmoke in a work shirt. But his sour streak isn’t quite caustic enough to overrun these songs with pure cynicism, and there’s enough tenderness in the balladry here to suggest some genuine sincerity behind the smokescreen of sarcasm.
Musically, World of Joy’s exuberant slop is a far cry from Gatesmith’s lyrical listlessness. A Cheap Trick riff here, a Raspberries hook there, a warbly Westerbergian weeper or two: Howler know from power-pop, and while their influences aren’t hard to pick out, their nervy playing and easy way with hook craft mostly gets them past mere imitation. “Here’s the Itch That Creeps Through My Skull” is a Dion song misted in Ocean Rain; closer “Aphorismic Wasteland Blues” is, for all intents and purposes, a skiffle song. Even on the slower numbers, World of Joy manages to maintain a certain wildness. But, for a bunch of guys who do a bang-up job projecting “over it,” Howler certainly seem to take some care in their craft; the rickety playing’s not without its charms, but these songs lose their shape when they start to streak past too quickly. These guys, power-poppers that they are, certainly know their way around a hook. But whenever they let the power overtake the pop, they load said hooks into a canon and light the fuse, leaving you with little else but a trail of smoke.
The trouble with World of Joy isn’t that it’s bad, but that it seems perfectly content to stop short at “pretty good.” These hooks are plenty catchy, but not world-conqueringly so; these performances are lively, but they’re not exactly primed to set the world on fire. And Gatesmith, even with the uptick in aggravation, still isn’t the easiest guy to get a read on: one minute he’s in a swoon, and the next, he’s grousing like a part-time punk. Sometimes rollicking, sometimes righteous, World of Joy is a spiny, strident rock record. But one can’t help but think pushing any one of these elements even further forward—the lyrical insouciance, the four-beers-deep playing, the clattering hookcraft—might help push them closer to the forefront of a crowded field. Still, even if they never quite achieve the greatness promised in those early notices, the world needs pretty good bands, and Howler fit that bill better than most.
