Review Summary: Still trying to save the world on Colfax and Broadway.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
Five Iron Frenzy burst into the Christian music market in ’97, with a debut that begins on a track dedicated to condemning manifest destiny and the American treatment of indigenous peoples, followed by a track about Reese Roper’s difficulty effecting any meaningful change as long as he’s stuck, broke in Denver, Colorado. The rest of the album was filled with the silly ska-punk and Christian sentiment that would become the recognizable expectations fans have for the band. With this unique blend of pop-punk, ska and unpredictable lyrics, they never found themselves outside of the embrace of Christian music fans, especially younger ones. I remember my loyalty to them in middle school being such that, when my older brother broke up with a woman who thought they were “weird,” not knowing of his other reasons, I thought “Good, that makes perfect sense.” Each release was a cause for celebration, and I’d get to know each song well through playlists my brother would form to fit his mood. That loyalty among young Christians could change with the release of
Until This Shakes Out.
This album is Reese Roper’s thesis to the American Church, unapologetically outlining the ways in which he feels it has gone astray: its treatment of the poor, its treatment of LBGTQ-identifying individuals, its treatment of workers, its treatment of women, etc. The target audience of his anger is never unclear. When damning our treatment of immigrants at the border, he asserts that “You were once a stranger on this soil. Serpents at your heart, will they now uncoil? Your brother's at the door - bless the poor in spirit. Your sister's in a cage - but you do not fear it.” He’s not just aiming his ire at the Conservative party in America, but the evangelical Christians who empower it and are empowered through it. This is followed up with the second track,
Lonesome for Her Heroes, a lamentation for his ever-changing city of Denver, as it undergoes gentrification. In
While Supplies Last Roper concentrates the most anger of any song on the album, decrying the hypocrisy of leaders who minimized the COVID crisis while evidently taking precautions for themselves and their families. On this track, among other call-outs, he explicitly notes how damaging the pro-life movement is, an extreme risk for the band that constituted the soundtrack of so many Christian's summers. In
Wildcat, the focus of the song is a working-class character who abandons their hometown and principles to work for an unethical oil company. The lyrics apply Christian notions of forgiveness and imperfection to show this character compassion – reserving his poison for the billionaires who run the company, aligning his posture with the mantra of the late leftist commentator Michael Brooks, “Be easy on the individual, be hard on the system.”
Sonically, the album is an improvement over and departure from
Engine of a Million Plots, seven years prior.
Until This Shakes Apart, like
Engines before it, is a comeback album. On
Engines the sound was heavily guitar-oriented and was akin to a quasi-hard rock album with horns. This time, however, they opt for a return to some of their ska influence, with the backbeat being emphasized in a few tracks. Beyond this, pop-punk is once again heavily present, with
Auld Lainxiety feeling like a complete return to form. Other highlights include the opener,
In Through The Out Door, which sounds much like a carry over from
Engines, but punchier with heavier horn involvement, and
Wildcat, a windows down pop-punk track you’ll want to play on repeat. No tracks have yet earned their place as a “skip” track, and the album feels like it forms a cohesive whole that can be enjoyably listened to from beginning to end. If
Engines of a Million Plots was one aural branch Five Iron could have followed after
The End is Near,
Until This Shakes Apart is another branch out from the latter, rather than a clean continuation of
Engines.
With this album, Reese Roper makes it clear that he intends to be Shaw’s unreasonable man. Whether or not he can save the world, he can be a voice for the oppressed and disenfranchised. His position as a well-known Christian artist serves as both his greatest obstacle and the place from which he can most directly make contact with those his message rubs up against. I hope that on one of my trips to the nearby city of Denver, I can catch Roper going about his business, and I can let him know that Denver isn’t so lonesome for heroes if he sticks around.
