Review Summary: Before emo became awful there was....
A lot of words have been used in an attempt to pinpoint the genre Drive Like Jehu best fits into. Some of the most common are math rock, mathcore, emo and post-hardcore. While also a great example of how people just love to categorize things, this also shows just how unique Drive Like Jehu is. Their self titled debut With this, their second and final album they pushed the boundaries of just how genre defying a band could be. Being unique doesn't necessarily make a great album, but Yank Crime does show just how exhilirating a fresh sound can be.
The album explodes into action from the onset with the spastic, violent, Here Come The Rome Ploughs. This song, easily one of the best on the album, showcases exactly what makes Drive Like Jehu such an enjoyable band. The tight, technical guitar riffs, the sharp, driving bass and the frantic vocals have all been copied by countless "post-hardcore" bands, but never with this level of enthusiasm and fury.
The very next song however takes the expectations built up by Here Come The Rome Ploughs and turns them 180 degrees. Do You Compute opens with a slower, much calmer guitar riff that, after the sheer violence of the opening track is slightly jarring. This riff goes on for almost two minutes, without anything except the drums for accompaniment. This begins to seriously drag the song down, especially when hearing it for the first time, which is a pity because the rest of the song is very good. It's more of an anthem than anything, with lead singer Rick Froburg shouting the title of the song repeatedly at the top of his lungs, which while epic and inspiring, begins to get repetetive as well.
This can be seen as an analogy of the rest of the album. Most of the time the music is exceptionally good, but it is on rare occasion that the album becomes slowed down by repetitiveness, which is generally used in an unsuccessful attempt to sound epic. A notable exception to this is the song Luau, which while being the longest song on the album is also the most violent and compelling. The song has a lurching, menacing beat which is complimented by Rick Froburg's urgent vocal delivery as well as some of the most intricate guitar work on the album. This makes Luau not only the best song on the album, but also the best song of Drive Like Jehu's career.
Conversely, the other standout track on the album is also the shortest. New intro is only 3 and a half minutes long, but provides a surprising change of pace. Far from being the furious emo seen on the rest of the album, this song gently treads into post-rock territory. The song is an instrumental, featuring a very relaxed yet powerful bass line that is weaved flawlessly with the more complex guitar. The song is a welcome break that ends all to soon.
This album, while not very successful financially has been a huge influence on the current post-hardcore and emo scenes, and so joins the ranks of those few extremely talented musical acts who managed to spawn some of the worst imitators imaginable. For this we curse Drive Like Jehu. But whenever I hear this album played, I can't help but forgive them.
