Pitchfork is now officially at Defcon 3. Over the years, our mailboxes have been perpetually packed with hundreds of virtually indistinguishable emo releases, leaving our synonyms for the word "whiny" all but exhausted. Therein lies the greater problem: the standard emo review has become just as formulaic and uninspired as the insipid genre which it criticizes. One can only invoke the American Music Club so many times before carpal tunnels claims and recasts his cramped hands as veritable claws, eternal tokens of his crusade against all that aches of unwieldy derivation. Luckily, we found someone to stand in for Brent, but it goes without saying that our once proud emo reviews are quickly losing their potency in light of the cancerous popularity our sworn enemy is enjoying.
My first instinct upon hearing Reuben's Accomplice was to a create a review comprised solely of cut-and-pasted excerpts from our archive as a sort of social commentary on "unabashed genre-bashing as critical synapse." Instead, I've come to the, admittedly, self-serving conclusion that "if Reuben's Accomplice don't contribute anything discernibly different from their peers, I shouldn't feel obligated to break from those traditions indigenous to my people."
I Blame the Scenery, at its best, is an unpretentious exercise in puerility that yearns for the days of jilted playground love. Unfortunately, whatever traumatic experiences culminated in the group's desire to make this kind of music seem to have stunted their musical and lyrical growth, which are firmly mired in the politics of junior high. Opting to approximate the callow self-centeredness of pubescence is not a crime in and of itself. Rather, it's the poor handling of the simple subject matter that damns Reuben's Accomplice as just another M2 flavor of the week and makes I Blame the Scenery an often grating listen.
Opening shows for the similarly marketed Jimmy Eat World might have influenced the songwriting. Throughout the course of the album, the Accomplice shed any distinguishing structural deviations and reveal themselves as exact carbon-copies of their more commercially inclined emo counterparts. But what Jimmy Eat World haven't mastered is the art of cramming as many clichés as possible into the smallest given area, something Reuben's Accomplice accomplish with commanding authority on "Fireworks." In short, the song's a meditative, mid-tempo nostalgic trip about a "brown-sweatered" girl who singer Jeff Bufano saw "smile under the fireworks" one evening. She is urged by Bufano to come back and "work it out."
There's a fine line between disarming simplicity and plain lack of talent. Though Reuben's Accomplice sound like capable musicians, I Blame the Scenery falls into far too many stylistic traps to achieve the emotional impact it intends. Maybe in the future, Bufano and company will overcome their drama and record something that doesn't send people through a painful series of winces. And who knows? If they wish upon a falling star, all their dreams might just come true! Anything is possible!
