Review Summary: Banner Pilot's debut album is a thundering classic of the genre. A necessary companion to anyone who survived their twenties and still feels the imprimatur or reminisces about the struggle of albeit simpler, freer times.
What defines an album as a classic of the genre? To me a classic album can be defined as being either musically groundbreaking, displaying a level of command of musicianship that elevates it above its peers, or both of those things.
Calling Banner Pilot's 2009 debut a classic might seem a bridge too far or the hagiographical croonings of a besotted fanboy. There is filler to be found here for sure, there is a lack of the technicality we expect from more modern bands of the genre such as The Wonder Years, and the poetry of the lyricism certainly does not paint the complex vivid pictures of a Gregor Barnett ballad to a long-lost nameless love.
These arguments make sense in 2023 after we have had our emotions and heartstrings pulled into tumultuous melodrama by the expert evocations of The Greatest Generation and On The Impossible Past, but Banner Pilot put Collapser out in 2009. This was years before either of the aforementioned bands reached the greatness for which they are now known by singing and songwriting about the calamities of modern American life. And now in 2023, the classic status of Collapser is cemented not because it was first of this new genre (which it wasn't) of introspective, reflective and maturing punk rock that shed the nursery rhymes about parties and break ups of blink-182, but because 14 years later it still sounds modern and relevant.
On Collapser the guitars have a drive, the drums crash along metronomically, the bass adds a meaty flourish, Nick Johnson's vocals spill hook after irresistible hook and the lyrics will take you to a place we all have been, and Banner Pilot found themselves in 2009. The musicianship on display here is not groundbreaking or overly technical. The true earworms are not to be found in any of the individual items on display, but Banner Pilot work so well within the narrow confines that define the musical realm of punk rock to form compositions and cacophonies that are much greater than the sum of their parts. The songs use everything the punk rocker has in their toolbox for their disposal. Leads hang over meaty rhythms, songs build up and break down, palm muted chords build into raging power chords and the energy of each movement is curated to deliver hook after hook which form into gigantic earworms that are impossible to not bond with wholeheartedly. The musicianship on display is no more technical that what you would find on an album like Screeching Weasel's My Brain Hurts, but the artistry of the tapestries being woven here brings the songs up to a higher level than simple power chords and angsty shouting. What we find in songs like Farewell to Iron Bastards and Northern Skyline could not be called technical musicianship but can be called masterful craftwork. The outro to Northern Skyline will pull you in and have you singing along with as much passion and enjoyment as far more polished and sophisticated efforts from industry titans (Feeling This from blink-182 comes to mind).
That is to say, the true greatness of this album is the delivery. Poetry is the artform of transforming the mundane into beautiful expressions of human existence. Being sad and sitting and staring out a window all day is not a particularly noteworthy thing, feeling a little down and unmotivated is a common occurrence in the modern condition. But I am not merely sad and unmotivated, I am the shadow of the waxwing slain by the false azure of the window pane, you see? Again, we do not see the lyrical prowess of a Gregor Barnett on display here. There are no little things your ears will commit to etch behind your eyelids, but Collapser will still transport you to that time and place we have all experienced. Nick Johnson does not whine, he does not sing about fancy cars, parties, drug abuse or the myriad of other features of the insecure. His complaints barely even register as complaints. He doesn't hate his job, he would just rather trade the white for the forest green, but he can't leave this town if you aren't with him. Collapser is about that feeling between the doom of your responsibilities and the freedom to live your life that we all experienced in our ephemeral early twenties. Having a beaten-up car wasn't a liability, it was a ticket for an adventure to where you wanted to go. Your unstable girlfriend wasn't a liability to the stability of a mortgage, she was a flame you chased because it made you feel something better than being alone and unheard. You didn't simply fail to save any significant amount of money this week, you found holes to fall into. "All of the streetlights are broken tonight" doesn't need to be artfully wrought into anything more than it is. Songs like Hold Me Up paint perfectly the picture of walking home through downtown at night, the browns and drudgery of a run-down and dilapidating city oppressing your surroundings. I bet you can't even remember where you were going or where you were coming from, but Banner Pilot will make you remember how it felt, and Collapser will make you almost miss it.
This album is not only a necessary part of every punk enthusiast's collection, it is a necessary part of their life. So long as there are misguided youth doing their best to navigate the chasm between living freely and authentically and trying to mould themselves into something worthwhile, Collapser will remain a classic. And I hope it does.
