In ninth grade, I brought some tapes to my school band teacher. It was stuff my then-band had been working on in my scant, single-mic'd bedroom. We weren't a bedroom pop outfit by any stretch; back then we played dour, emotionally apoplexed emocore. And what we played weren't quite songs, per se: There were chords, and some faint attempts at melodies, but that was about all you could make out underneath the tumescent basslines and audible flying shards of metal from my cymbal crashes. Still, Mr. Rotello put his blistered ear to speaker and carefully considered our laughable concoctions. When it was over, he declared, "I think you guys need a piano."
I like to kid myself and think that if we'd taken his advice, stayed together, and learned to play our instruments, like, really well, we might today sound akin to 90 Day Men, whose piano-driven compositions resonate with Biblical intensity. The fact is, no one does: 90 Day Men are one of the most original bands underground, and their instrumental competency offers something for high school freshman everywhere to admire. The band has been labeled everything from prog rock to "hardcore pop," but so far no one's been able to pigeonhole their sound successfully-- and actually, I think it would be doing the band a disservice to shoo them into any genre or subgenre just yet.
Panda Park, the band's third full-length release in four years, updates a sound that was already intriguing and distinctive on To Everybody and the pompously titled (It (Is) It) Critical Band. By now, the Men have earned the right to sound as pretentious as they did on their debut album, but opt instead for a more honed approach. At a modest 32 minutes, Panda Park is like a French dinner: a tight package of intensely rich compositions, best taken one forkful at a time, accompanied by a gracious interlude to help cleanse the palette and, of course, a decadent finale. But where the band's earlier material was dreary to a point of being downright oppressive, Panda Park utilizes lighter textures to help brighten the milieu. "Chronological Disorder" and "When Your Luck Runs Out" contain sufficient helpings of electronic sugar, making the songs blithely enjoyable, and at times even a bit (gasp!) uplifting.
A naive conception commonly held is that instrumental skill must always upend a song's integrity by superseding everything that makes music meaningful to us. 90 Day Men seem as if they're on a mission to erase that fallacy. But before calling compositionally intricate songs such as "Even Time Ghost Can't Stop Wagner" prog-rock, be aware of the implications. These guys aren't Queensryche: every 32nd note and oddly syncopated melody feels meaningful and integral to the overall piece.
As for the piano, its presence fits right in to the clamorous mix. Like Menomena on last year's I Am the Fun Blame Monster, 90 Day Men gracefully interweave high-volume electronics and acoustic elements. Andy Lansangan's listful keyboard and piano parts often serve as the driving melodic element. In the grandiose chorus of "Chronological Disorder", an ideal side-one closer, he and Case team up for their best "November Rain" impersonation-- which actually isn't such a bad thing: Like all the bold ideas on Panda Park, the move is pulled off tastefully and with just the right restraint. Case's arena rock caterwauling is reserved for a few well-placed choruses, which is symbolic of the huge strides 90 Day Men have made with this album. The band have finally mastered the monstrous proportions of their diffuse talents and arranged them in ways that are wholly satisfying and distinctly unique.
