Review Summary: Now I’m drinkin’ and now I’m thinkin’ ‘bout youuuuuuuuu
Maybe Japandroids weren’t meant to last. The Canadian duo rode a wave to indie prominence - right place, right time - at a moment when rock groups celebrating youthful exuberance and bemoaning its impending loss in equal measure were all the rage. Their first records - 2009’s
Post-Nothing and 2011’s
Celebration Rock - captured the heart of the indie crowd through untrammeled energy and an exhilarating attitude defined primarily by the lack of ***s given. Relative to their various punk-tinged contemporaries similarly cranking out earnest and vital tunes, like The Gaslight Anthem and Cloud Nothings, Japandroids were always less sorrowful - unabashed celebrations of debauchery, lust, and love were their calling card, and any suggestion of growing old or of a diminishing zest for life in their songs tended to be unstated and implicit.
After those two widely-lauded LPs, Japandroids let five years slip by before the release of
Near to the Wild Heart of Life. Perhaps predictably, this third full-length wasn’t greeted so positively, with the band’s attempts at a more mellow and less spitfire direction coming out uneven. Ultimately, though, I have a nagging suspicion that the record’s lukewarm reception had more to do with us (the aging fanbase) than them (the band) - Japandroids are, for good and for ill, a fairly one-note band, and for their average listener, those original roaring party jams are both unlikely to be topped and also far less likely to receive steady rotation further along in this journey of life.
Now, a further seven years out, we have
Fate and Alcohol, Japandroids’ final statement as a band. The duo have already played their last show - by an odd twist of fate, both their first and their last album were released after the duo already decided to call it quits (
Post-Nothing emerged after the band had already resolved to dissolve, only to reconsider through a series of unlikely events culminating in a burst of Pitchfork-assisted fame). Given its context, and the fact that both band members are now well into middle age, it’s likely unsurprising that this concluding work doesn’t live up to Japandroids’ halcyon days. Indeed, at times this LP feels like the sonic equivalent of that blaze of excitement accompanying the prospect of getting back together with a bunch of your rowdiest old friends after a decade apart, bringing in a few cases of beer, and then all promptly dozing off half-a-Pilsner in while watching the nightly news. Time comes for us all, I guess. It’s notable, too, how many melodies here are reminiscent of those which came before, notwithstanding the fact that the Japandroids discography isn’t particularly extensive.
With all that said,
Fate and Alcohol ultimately works better than my cynical self might’ve predicted. The crucial thing is that Japandroids have aged fairly gracefully here - these songs still view the world through the familiar prism of good times, stiff drinks, and wild women, but there’s also more nuance and depth than their usual fare. Probably for the best, at least some of these tunes ponder what happens “
after the party” (thank you, The Menzingers), as the more drab and dreary, but also more meaningful, stages of life take center stage.
“Positively 34th Street” might not be the literal closer here, but it feels like the proper kiss-off to the Japandroids story. It’s very catchy, for one thing, but there’s something satisfying too about the protagonist’s last-ditch settling down- naturally, given his own proclivities, the “right one” is a “
walkin’, talkin’, drinkin’, smokin’, gamblin’ kind of girl”. Elsewhere, the tunes here are rarely transformative or earth-shattering, even if “Eye Contact High” is a great opener and “A Gaslight Anthem" (yes, that's the title) is a sweet jam, but even the lesser tracks are pretty tasteful. All in all,
Fate and Alcohol makes for a solid final act for a band which beat the actuarial tables by a wide margin. In the end, change is all there is, and beautiful things are all the more profound because they’re fleeting. Philosophy treatises aside, Japandroids know this all better than anyone, as a duo who played with the blazing fire of youth for as long as they could hold onto it without burning their hands. Despite the way a bunch of power chords and a roaring lyric might inspire, nobody has the power to give me younger us, so this album will have to do just fine. Thanks for the memories, boys.
