Review Summary: Public Practice’s full-length debut is a solid look into their (hopefully) promising future.
When reviewing newer acts, there’s the potential to fall into the trap of calling them “the next big thing”. We’ve all seen this sort of rapturous praise being thrust upon certain acts and artist, only for those artists to flounder into obscurity a few releases later. New York’s Public Practice is a group that I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything they’ve released (as little of it there is), so the temptation to trigger that same snare that others have fallen prey to in the past is strong. The group’s first LP, Gentle Grip, being as good as it is certainly doesn’t help. But, knowing what I know about these sorts of new wave-inspired post-punk groups, they never seem to garner the same fervor their harsher or poppier contemporaries seem to get. And Gentle Grip skirts the line between danceable funk punk and more modern art punk, so it’s hard to see them finding a very large audience.
Having this knowledge is a burden, because I really want to endorse Public Practice as a standout act that listeners should look out for this decade, or something to that effect. Knowing that this sort of music has become so niche and insulated is a truly hard pill to swallow. While Gentle Grip isn’t my favorite record to come out this year, I really do think they have the songs to make an even stronger impression with others than it did with me. That may seem a tad backwards to some of you, but even the issues I had with this record aren’t enough to stop me from giving this the overly-positive, “best-thing-since-sliced-bread” review this record deserves but most likely will not receive. At least, that's what years of experience have shown me.
Gentle Grip sees a bit of a departure for Public Practice, with a clearer focus on funk/dub elements, as opposed to the energetic art punk of their early releases. There are some elements of the latter (specifically on tracks “Compromised”), but across the album’s 12 tracks, the main sound is most notably derived from the bands of the short-lived dub post-punk made semi-famous by groups in the 1980s. The lovely “Understanding” is the best example of this new sound, which keeps a steady, rhythmic pace, and compounds it with great vocals and guitarwork. While I would have much preferred the style of their early work, and the instrumentation can be a bit bare at times, I feel that it’s to the benefit of the songs. That’s because despite its generally affable instrumentation, Gentle Grip is a very bleak record tonally. The aptly-titled “Leave Me Alone” juxtaposes a slow funk backdrop with repetitive cries for isolation. Speaking of which, while I do enjoy the vocals, the lyrics are not particularly sharp at times. On tracks like the aforementioned “Leave Me Alone” and the slow-burn “Hesitation”, they do work well to establish a certain dour atmosphere, but they feel more like decoration to accompany the instrumentation, rather than proper thought-out lines.
With all those points going against it, how can I in good conscience claim this is contender for some kind of arbitrary “best new music” designation? Going in to this review, I wasn’t sure if an
Album Rating: 4.0 would be worth such rapturous praise. But at the risk of sounding a bit downtrodden/conceited, there’s a good chance that this will fly under-the-radar for most avid music fans, and I’ll be lone in my raised interest in Public Practice. As an aging hipster like myself has become accustomed to. I’m ready to see where this group heads next. And as reviewers in the past have done, I’m cashing in my praise now to call them “the next big thing”. Cause if they aren’t for the rest of the world, at least they are to me.
