Review Summary: Nothing Makes me feel this young
I haven’t listened to this album sober in about 3 years. Certain albums are perfect for dark winter nights alone with your thoughts. Others work best on a summer afternoon.
Celebration Rock sounds best when absolutely hammered, irrespective of context. Whether walking home from the pub late at night, or if the party is just beginning, something in my drunken subconscious has constantly defaulted to this 35-minute noise rock release from Vancouver duo Japandroids for several months now. I’m not completely sure why this is.
Maybe it’s because my inebriated brain doesn’t process the fact that there’s almost no musical or lyrical variety to be found within. All it hears is anthem after anthem, as my usually cynical nature flies out the window and I convince myself that we aren’t all just highly evolved apes clinging to a dying chunk of rock and whose ultimate extinction will probably be a net positive. In that sense, Japandroids succeed completely in their overall aim to convince anyone, no matter how misanthropic, to throw their fists into the air and party like it’s their last night on earth.
They do this by playing fast music with just a guitar and a drum kit, with both members contributing vocals, often in the form of chanted ‘woahs’ and so forth. Their lyrics command the listener to seize the day (one for players of Japandroids review bingo there), get catatonically drunk and stay up until the sun rises while David Prowse literally beats the *** out of his drum kit and Brian King pumps out riff after headbanging riff. The energy is infectious; if you haven’t heard this record before, then why not have a few tonight and give it a spin? If it doesn’t pump you up, then you’re not the sort of person I’d want to organise a surprise birthday party for.
It’s a simple formula, and not far removed from
Post-Nothing, the band’s debut. Yet to play as they do as a two piece has always seemed technically impressive to a musical layman like me. It’s also the opposite of subtle, but nobody listens to Japandroids for nuance and you can’t fault an album for doing exactly what it says on the tin. These boys are in the business of revelry, and while in the back of my mind is the undeniable fact that we can’t all party every night for the rest of our lives, and that we all have or will have certain responsibilities, we all like to forget about that once in a while. Japandroids facilitate that process better than most, and that’s the beauty of what they do.
I think I might have cracked why this is my current favourite drinking album. I recently graduated from university and it’s about time I found a proper job and did something with my life. This is a reality I would rather not face up to, and Japandroids help me to believe for brief periods that I won’t have to. Their music completely bypasses the cynical, sneering part of my brain. They remind me that I am still young, that there will be wild nights in the future that may top those in the past, and that maybe I don’t have to grow up just yet.
