Review Summary: Hit that reset button.
I listen to a lot of bands that sound a hell of a lot like Femme Generation. I’m sure I’ve already put some recommendations on the right side there for you to peruse and not listen to. You’d think by this point, this brand of 2000s post-punk would start getting stale to my ears, but it hasn’t happened yet. If/when it does, I will be sure to keep you posted. A candlelight vigil will be held in the park; a strict dress code
will be enforced.
Jokes aside, it would be a shame if I ever stopped liking Myspace indie punk bands. Especially ones as great as Femme Generation. I actually discovered this band relatively recently, during one of my great internet music excavations (aka e-crate digging). I’d hate to throw the whole “of its time” line around so early into a review, but Brothers and Sisters, Alone We Explode is a perfect time capsule of its era, preserved in flawless amber. Without even looking, you can tell this was released in the mid-2000s. It just has that
feel, you know? Not exactly lo-fi, but not too polished. Amateur vocals that sound like someone you were close to was fronting the band. Sporting a genuine dance-punk attitude. Faint political rumblings mixed in properly with humor and drowned out by the wall of noise. The first half of the album being slightly better than the second (don’t tell anyone I said that in my glowing 5.0 review for this album). It’s all there.
So the question is, does an album like this still hold up for people nowadays? I mean, I know it does for me. I’m not the one that needs convincing here. It’s the people that haven’t heard the album yet. Or, even better, the people that have no goddamn idea what I’m even talking about. Well, worry not: this next part of the review is for you. Yes, it absolutely does hold up. This has the potential to be your new obsession. “The Nation’s Birthday” will feel all to familiar to the raised-online crowd with its snappy, charged lyrics, while the mellower among us I could see awkwardly bobbing their heads to tunes like “Automaton Love Song” and “Hearts in Stitches.”
Like I said earlier, I’ve heard a lot of bands that sound like this one. But none that do it so convincingly. If you’re in the market for a trip back to the days when “post-punk revival” was actually a viable and trendy thing that was being made/marketed, then I cannot think of a better candidate than this. And you know what? I’m in such a good mood after listening to this album, forget about the dress code for my candlelight vigil. Come dressed in your best pair of roughed-up jeans and a beanie.
