On the rear of the digipak that houses Rockfour's Nationwide, the Tel Aviv band's sixth album (second stateside), there's a rather amateur photograph of some far-off cows grazing in a wide, open plain. The plain's location is indeterminate-- it could be in Israel, or the U.S., or any number of other places-- but what interests me more than the plain is the clouds above it. Really, I gave them no second thought until I looked at the booklet stowed within the outer casing, which uses two blown-up portions of the rear cover photo-- the thing is that when you open the booklet and view the front and back together, the two sections blend seamlessly as though they were one contiguous image, an impossibility since in the actual, full photograph, the section of the image that appears on the left is actually on the right.
Why am I ranting about this? Honestly, I have little reason beyond the fact that it just struck me that somebody took the time to doctor these two details of a single photograph and serve them up as something new, probably knowing full well that almost nobody would notice it. I suppose I also mention it because it's the sort of double-take detail that Rockfour build their music on. The album that introduced them to American audiences, 2002's Another Beginning, was loaded with left turns and deceptive juxtapositions like that, and also happens to be one of the most enjoyable tributes to 1968 I've heard in ages. Two years later, with Nationwide, they seem poised to equal and perhaps surpass that album, but run out of steam before they get the chance.
The album opens with a trio of knockout tunes spiked with 12-string jangle nicked from Roger McGuinn and honeyed harmonies. "Honey" immediately strikes a darker tone for the album with its midtempo pound and lyrics that sound innocent enough until you realize that, "You call her honey/ She gets in the car," details an encounter with a prostitute. The title track is a rambunctious landslide of bouncing rhythm and thick harmony, highlighted by a warped guitar break that sounds beamed into the middle of the song from another planet, while "Next Monroe" drapes a sad minor melody over a dramatic chord progression. The problem is that, after this impressive opening salvo, the guns are only on target about half the time.
Part of the problem is that the band has largely left behind the fun 'n' frenzy of their earlier material in an attempt to add a heavier, more serious edge to their sound, an entirely unnecessary exercise. "To the End" has a wonderfully Lennon-esque melody, but the music underneath just thrashes with no center of gravity, finally coughing up an absurdly indulgent guitar solo. "Mad Routine" finds more success with the fuzzier, more brutish take on the band's sound due to its propulsive rhythm and oozing hot glue melody, but the band muddies up "You Said" and "Crush on Subtitles" with too much distortion and rhythmic homogeneity.
So while Rockfour have bulked their sound up with roomfuls of steroidal guitar pedals, they've also sacrificed some of the character and attention to detail that they built their name on. They can still kick out a melody with the best of them, but the slight update they've attempted has a tendency to load their songs down with too much dead weight. The occasions where they get it right are sublime, but Another Beginning hits it out of the park every time and remains the best introduction to the band.
