Review Summary: I want to capture it accurately
When you take into consideration quite how important the concept of 'the wave' was, it's easy to understand the appeal of a band like La Dispute. Definitely that most emotionally mature and instrumentally skilled band to emerge from this movement, the five piece have been releasing intense post-hardcore records for the last eight years.
Vancouver, for all its flaws, was the heaviest and least accessible thing the band have done to date, so it makes sense that the Here, Hear series exist, as a counterpart to the inconsolable rage of that EP alongside the awkward transition into more melodic territory that was the untitled release of 2008. Whereas the fury of these releases betrayed their extremely advanced skills as songwriters with fairly simple riff work and biting, unpredictable screams, all three Here, Hear's are my favourite La Dispute material due to their grasp of story telling, something that has failed to shine through in the band's other projects. The instrumentally impressive but ultimately very inconsistent Somewhere... only reinforced this point. This band is at their best as empathisers with the common man, and a focus on flashy basswork and repetitive melodies seem to deviate from this to an extent too great to be enjoyed.
And yet, when Wildlife landed, the band completely missed the mark. The songs were too long (as was the tracklist) and the lyrics were too overwrought and dramatic to have an emotional impact (or at least one in the way obviously intended). The band reigned in their aggression in favour of a more clear-cut approach to delivery, but a lack of memorable songs rendered the record a massive waste of time to anyone who had enjoyed either of the bands two very different halves. But here, the band's yin and yang seem to have finally harmonised well.
Rooms Of The House features songs that, simply, are the best the band have ever released. There's no sudden yelps, no guttural growls and no spastic, technical riffs, just 12 catchy, very re-playable songs about things that almost all of us can relate to. Wildlife seemed almost extravagant in its build up, but was then extinguished with no word of a warning. The very definition of anti-climactic. In contrast, Rooms is a roaring fire, incinerating all around it. Jordan Dreyer is for the first time a genuinely unique narrator, finally managing to sound as gripped with passion as on the acoustic material with which he first built up a repertoire of unrestrained lyrical dynamite. But he no longer borrows from others, rather his own personal experiences (or those of his friends) become the mainframe for his seemingly inexhaustible supply of tragic tales.
And the moments on this album that I remember really are awe-inspiring. Closer Objects In Space is beautifully simple, acoustically driven and featuring moments of gorgeous guitar to accompany the at first seemingly random lists of items that condenses the ranting Dreyer has been doing for so long into a near perfect 3 minutes. These songs barely even sound like La Dispute at times, and certainly display that the band have moved with the times. Forsaking their earlier fans in favour of making better music may have not been the best career move, but I'll be damned if it hasn't finally realised their potential.
