Review Summary: POP goes AJJ
MAJOR key MISERY for breakfast, lunch and dinner is AJJ’s 8th sad boi shindig. It is served with hooks and ears and worms and cream. It is rather tasty. Sloppy and sincere? YES,
still, but focused and refined to a degree lacking from the ex- folk punk outfit since circa 2011. Key review theme:
Disposable Everything’s pop-tastic warbling is, shockingly, rather sensible. Sure, Bonnette’s lyricism remains as dorky and awkward and kinda lovely as ever, like a puppy with a bowtie tripping over its own face, but the instrumental undergirling behind his well-worn soapbox is now actually soft and tasteful and restrained. Warm production, fruity melodic tendencies and a subtle attention to detail are all present and accounted for, and amount to quite a contrast from the hot sticky DIY vomit of
The Bible 2 and still rather scratchy and mildly parodial folk scaffolding of
Good Luck Everybody. Despite, therefore, straying as far as they ever have from the scrappy roughness and stubborn messiness of their roots, this sanding down and growing up is actually, I submit, a good thing. Proof: this is
easily the best AJJ record in over a decade. Here is an, erm, analysis(?!) that seeks to justify my feelings.
Back to the hooks, for there are many: there be both silly throwaway hooks and well-considered hooks (I Hate Rock and Roll Again c.f. The Baby Panda), band-staple goof and new-shiny-Sufjan-ish sauce (I Wanna Be Your Dog 2 c.f. Dissonance), and kinda jazzy / psychedelic tings (Candles of Love c.f. A Thought of You). This overload of curvaceous pointy metal bits sounds nice to hear with my ears on my head, each coloured in with hot pink synths and some v. cute keyboard fills amongst the guitar-music straightforwardness. This pile of sharp fishing gear also lends
Disposable Everything a deceptively happy aura. Band-trademarked pessimism and frustration re “the way things are” still seep through the flowers and hay, spearheaded by the LP’s quietly venomous t/t, but are tempered more than usual. Jadedness and restless dissatisfaction, whilst definitely present, give way to calm introspection and tentative optimism with regularity, w/ thoughtful reflections on family and friendship and how to stay alive having more room to sing than the bands 2020 petrol bomb allowed for. The thematic balance comes a lot closer to that achieved in their 2007 opus, which, as someone who personally enjoys eating people, I am all for!
A criticism: the ballads still kinda suck. Take away the hooks, dial up the ham-fisted hot takes and, ig, the cracks start to reappear, w/ these quieter tracks choking on their own authenticity and an overload of eeeeekkk. The barefaced candor of “White Ghosts”, for example, is
yeesh until saved by a rather gorgeous string arrangement, whilst the aforementioned t/t gets cloying quickly on repeated listens (i am not sure suggesting america quote “hates humanity” is, uh,
entirely accurate, Sean). Full disclosure: I have included this line of criticism solely as a credibility check because I am a professional (clearly) but, honestly, who fucking cares. AJJ have always had a cringe factor to them, but it’s part of the charm, and to scold them for it at this late stage of their career feels silly, particularly when the similarly slow boi closer and its waterfall of surreal metaphors is as immaculate as it is.
I am done talking now because
Disposable Everything is such a joyous little bottle rocket of an album that does not require you to think too hard and whilst it does not reinvent the wheel it will love you regardless and I am going to go and listen to it again because I need a hug.
