Review Summary: A sincere and carefully crafted alt-rock album with shallow valleys and sky-high peaks
Update: It’s March 31, 2023, and it’s been a rough couple of years for the sensitive ones out there. We’ve endured physical and social isolation. Fear and paranoia in the face of an unprecedented global health crisis. Economic uncertainty. Climate apocalypse. Billionaires in space. A coup attempt spearheaded by a shirtless dude in a coonskin/viking hat. All of which thrown in our faces with gleeful verve by sociopathic media corporations clawing for our attention, preying on our vulnerabilities like raccoons tearing up trash bags.
With GRIM AGE, The Classic Crime attempts to grapple with anxiety and anger in the face of “physical and virtual balkanization and loneliness.” It’s worth asking, though, what the band, a rock band now 20 years into its formation, has to add to all this? The answer: a predictably effective blend of vocal virtuosity, unabashed sincerity, and steadfast consistency. GRIM AGE, in spite of its flaws, is a great album by the force of its craftsmanship, passion, and execution. Three specific features of GRIM AGE help to make it a standout album: Matt McDonald’s vocal performance, the pacing, and a handful of pristine tracks that count among the best material the band has ever released.
The main draw of GRIM AGE, as with any Classic Crime album, is the vocal performance by Matt McDonald. If you’re reading this review, you probably don’t need a primer on the quality of the man’s voice: his singing, as always, is excellent on GRIM AGE. Where the album stands out from TCC’s previous work, though, is the writing quality of Matt’s toplines. Several passages are truly transcendent: to name a few, the first verse of “ALONE IN THE CITY,” the second verse and vocoder-assisted bridge of “END OF EVERYTHING,” the harmony-assisted verses of “INTO THE EARTH,” the choruses of “HIGH MILEAGE,” and the choruses in “LOST MAGIC” are jaw-dropping moments, a perfect marriage of vocal talent and craftsmanship that’s absolute bliss for the ears.
In a further testament to the album’s craftsmanship, the pacing on GRIM AGE is incredibly tight and efficient. So much of songwriting depends on an artist’s ability to build, sustain, and relieve tension: mere seconds can make all the difference in whether a song succeeds or falls flat. To that end, there are few wasted seconds in the forty-minute runtime of GRIM AGE. This is most obvious in the quicker, faster-paced cuts like “RAGEBOI,” “RIGHT NOW,” and “STAY IN LOVE.” RAGEBOI, at 68 seconds, packs six distinct sections, running the gamut from dissonant punk riffs, a melodic break, anthemic, sing-along vocals, and a screamed outro. “RIGHT NOW” is similarly efficient, with its verses providing quick, groovy bursts of energy. The subdued first chorus and transition to an energetic second verse at the 1:18 mark, in particular, is a nice turn that inverts the band's typical balance of energy between verse and chorus. “STAY IN LOVE,” the tonal sequel to “Take the Moment,” is economical where its predecessor lags: any song that hits its second chorus at the 1:18 mark is not here to waste your time. The band’s mastery of pacing and dynamics is even more impressive, though, in the slower and longer cuts. “END OF EVERYTHING” is a deliberate, low-tempo rocker that thrives on atmosphere, slow build, and the ebb and flow of tension. “LOST MAGIC” starts with sparse acoustic guitar chords and poetic vocals, setting a meditative mood. At the 1:18 mark, though, the song hits an absolutely gorgeous, piano-driven left turn in a tonal bait-and-switch that’s executed masterfully. And “INTO THE EARTH”... well we’ll get into that. Point is, every measure of GRIM AGE is executed with care and intentionality, a testament to the band’s growth in craftsmanship.
While the execution of ideas on GRIM AGE is consistently excellent, the ideas themselves are more hit-or-miss. After the balls-to-the-wall variety of Patterns in the Static, GRIM AGE marks the band largely returning to its alt-rock roots, with dashes of punk, metal, and folk. Nostalgic, return-to-roots-style albums aren’t my cup of tea, per se, and many songs here lack the experimental flourishes that make their best material so exciting. Specifically, the four-track run from “THE OLD WAYS” through “NEW NOISE” lives in the same tonal universe as Albatross. Even though that run of tracks is well-crafted and executed, with a few neat ideas sprinkled in (shoutout to Alan Clark’s bass work in the verses of “NEW NOISE”), there’s just not a whole lot to sink one’s teeth into. “ALONE IN THE CITY” and “RIGHT NOW” are promising tracks, but they have considerable hiccups in the lyrical department. The former tries to get far too much mileage out of its title lyric, sapping some momentum from its pristine first verse. The latter is an excellent track musically, but it’s done in by some distractingly bad lyrics. Take these passages, for example:
“Do you remember back when everybody used to be human? / Before we were branded and commodified / Categorized to monetize us / Reduce it all down to what can be sold.
…
People plant their flags / Blind to all the ways in which their actions / Violate their moral claims / Well, I for one am tired of complying / While the algorithm hacks our brains”
“RIGHT NOW”'s lyrics sink it like an anchor. It's in fertile thematic territory, but the tell-don’t-show lyricism serves to remind the listener that these ideas have been executed far better elsewhere (see, e.g., Bo Burnham’s “Inside”). But I won’t pile on. To be fair, the lyricism on GRIM AGE, though not my focus in this review, is solid overall. And, even where the lyrics "miss," the band’s greatest strength is its unabashed, heart-on-its-sleeve sincerity: a few morsels of cheese is just the price of admission on a Classic Crime record.
Thankfully, a few tracks on GRIM AGE see the band firing on all cylinders. “STAY IN LOVE” is a quick, efficient burst of saccharine, pop-rock fun. The delay-infused “END OF EVERYTHING” and folk-based “HIGH MILEAGE” not only feature some of the most brilliant vocal lines of the entire album, but are album high points in production and mixing. But the true show-stopper is “INTO THE EARTH.” A haunting meditation on the promise of “til death do us part,” the track kicks off with a delicious groove featuring great snare work from Paul Erickson, before the band kicks in with slick bass work from Alan Clark and a lead guitar line from Cheeze Negrin that flawlessly accentuates Matt’s vocal melody. The first chorus boasts some great chord changes, chunky guitar, and a perfectly restrained vocal performance. Then we’re back to the second verse, which absolutely bursts with groove, energy, and melody, with the haunting slide guitar a particular highlight. Somehow, though, the band saved the best for last. As the song transitions from the second chorus, the band turns down the volume, seamlessly stitching the verse and chorus grooves together for a full minute of pulse-pounding buildup before exploding into the heaviest, chunkiest riff of the album. It’s an unexpected burst of post-hardcore bliss, with the band channeling their inner Thrice/Deftones in the most mosh-able passage of their career. It’s an absolutely breathtaking end to a breathtaking track. This is "Song of the Year" stuff here, folks.
With the masterful “INTO THE EARTH” as its centerpiece, GRIM AGE is a carefully crafted alt-rock album with shallow valleys and sky-high peaks. As a whole, the album’s more of a spiritual successor to “Vagabonds” and “How to Be Human” than the phenomenal and boundary-pushing “Patterns in the Static,” “Phoenix,” and “Silver Cord.” But, even in this era of infinite options, The Classic Crime’s talent and craft, along with its unique and unabated sincerity and passion, make GRIM AGE a standout album well worth multiple listens.
Now, on to find a link to the Album #8 Kickstarter campaign.
Highlights:
INTO THE EARTH
END OF EVERYTHING
HIGH MILEAGE
LOST MAGIC
STAY IN LOVE
