Review Summary: There’s no such thing as a dumb cliché.
When I asked Jordan C. Weinstock what he made of the relationship between art and mental illness, he politely dismissed the question. I hoped I hadn’t struck a nerve, but ultimately, he felt he wasn’t the right person to answer. There is one thing he said, however, that I feel deserves highlighting, if not for its wisdom, then for its relevance to the album at hand.
“[T]hey’re people, not ‘artists’.”
If it wasn’t obvious enough, this is an emo album. It’s an album in the vein of Joie De Vivre’s
The North End, or indeed, anything from Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate)’s expansive catalogue. (I say this knowing much of the latter influence likely comes from the band’s opus
What It Takes to Move Forward, though if I had to make a comparison, it’d be to E!E!’s earlier work, in which Keith Latinen wrenches emotion from the roughest of compositions, like dried blood from chilenses.) Moreover,
We Are Beautiful… is an album that sees Weinstock’s american poetry club (apc) shedding itself of its twee influences to redirect its ambitions toward – as I understand it – something a little more country-oriented. Despite this (I’d use the word “gimmick” if it weren’t so pejorative), it’s important to understand that the band’s venture into the emo genre is more than a mere pitstop. The passion is there. And as unwilling as the apc frontman seems to quantify “good art” – if it mattered (it doesn’t, but if it did), I imagine his sole criteria would be that of sincerity – ‘kmd’ is, by all means, a perfect emo song.
Flowing from the (wholesome) grit of the previous track ‘quick reminder that you are good’, ‘kmd (and you are ever so dear in our hearts because of it!)’ bursts into existence, its rough downstrokes soon dissipating into overly-familiar guitar twinkles. The bridge cleverly, and perhaps unintentionally finds conflict within its desire to be at once sensitive and confrontational. It hesitates for just over a minute before Jordan eventuates (miraculously) some over-empowering synthesis between the two. “It’s getting late, I should go to bed / And I never felt any existential dread,” he pushes out clumsily from somewhere in the back of his throat, like a lump yearning to be gashed. The rest of the band follow suit as one cohesive unit (again, miraculously), and the instrumental swells and falls around the song’s foundation, suspending and suspended by its intensity. Jordan sounds totally despondent singing, “I heard what you’re thinking of / And it tears me to pieces”. But a sudden and impassioned vocal appearance from bandmate Connor (who also provides trumpets to the backend) lends a certain vigour to the track that carries an otherwise careful Jordan to the song and, arguably, the album’s emotional climax.
A bit late, but it’d be remiss of me to divert too much attention from opener ‘forklift’, or the fantastic lead single, ‘the sum of your parts’. As captivating as ‘kmd’ is, it’s the songs that build toward it that characterise the greater part of
We Are Beautiful…, and for good reason: the album fashions its quirks out of a sense of directness, revealing at its heart an implacable, though unmistakable
something. Despite the album’s passing adherence to genre tropes – its sometimes rough, often twinkling guitar passages, its strained vocal passages, its bizarre preoccupation with the banalities of life –
We Are Beautiful… fashions its constituents into something altogether unique. There is no doubt that Jordan C. Weinstock wrote this album. Or that his band, together, sculpted it. Because no matter the template, at the heart of apc exists something not difficult to emulate, though impossible to fake – something worth acknowledging, though perhaps not labelling, lest I kill it.
And therein lies the crux of
We Are Beautiful, Even When We Are Broken.
Calling it “human” wouldn’t help its case, nor “pulsing”. But there is life here. A “soul” of sorts, I suppose, but not. When I asked Jordan what he made of the relationship between art and mental illness, he diverted the question because, not only was it not his story to tell, but it implied some sort of requisite, or expectation in the creation of music – one that may exist, though perhaps shouldn’t. After all, american poetry club is, ultimately, the people that make it. And
We Are Beautiful... is very much alive.
