With Only Trying to Help as my first and only piece of evidence, I find singer-songwriter Ryan Ferguson guilty of the suck-ification and consequent breakup of once engaging San Diego post-punk group No Knife. As punishment, I'd sentence Ferguson to a lifetime of forging emo albums out of the gooiest of sentimentalities, but the dude's beat me to it. Straddling the mall-punk tangent that plagued No Knife's later material, Ferguson aims higher on the pop charts than ever with Help, a soft-rock debut as meek and unctuous as its title suggests.
Saddest part of this debacle is, Ferguson, like the rest of his ex-No Knife mates, can pack a Cuomo's worth of hooks in a aptly composed song; though lately, like Rivers, he's been using his powers for evil, not good. Combining the superbad geek catchiness of all those mid-90s Weezer wannabes (Superdrag and Harvey Danger especially come to mind) with the mawkish, Claritin-deprived whine of this decade's emo, Ferguson's simultaneously weeping and pissing on No Knife's grave. For example, "Must Be Friday Night" would likely evoke, in No Knife's heyday, inebriated brawls or at least some sardonic social commentary. Instead, Ferguson croons "I'm alone in my room/ So it must be Friday night," and somewhere in the world a keg-hugging frat guy glances up from the tap and sheds a lone tear.
For a few brief snippets, Ferguson pays his respects to some semblance of indie rock. Opener "Remission" summons the kind of life-affirming choral tidal wave Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew makes his career out of, and the curious line "So we take the knife/ And cut away pieces that don't seem right" stirs up some nasty gossip around No Knife's breakup. In other instances, like the Gatling gun snare during the verse of "X's and O's" or the faux-Specter girth of the Brian Wilson-esque "In the Sea", interesting ideas pop up but quickly get trounced by heavy-handed choruses or unwarranted dashboard confessionals.
Dismissing Ferguson as a total hack, while tempting during the throes of "The Imposter"'s or "Not On My Watch"'s sob sessions, would do his songwriting a disservice. Taste's the bane here, not talent. You can easily read Ferguson's opportunism on "Introduction" when his aggressive post-punk strumming abruptly switches to sweet nothings: "A fading photograph of her face/ Takes me to the safest place." I'm not surprised then that "Suddenly," from Ferguson's debut EP Three, Four, earned a spot on the soundtrack of The Sims 2. Like a cruel Sims user, Ferguson's mastered the songwriting game enough to balance the various elements on his palette and make people happy, but instead he chooses to drain our morale meters with, in Help's case, unmitigated histrionics and Top 40 posturing.
