31Knots-Worried Well-2008-RTB

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Posted:2008-08-30 15:04:42 | Category:Indie

ARTIST: 31Knots
TITLE: Worried Well
LABEL: Polyvinyl
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 170kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 43m total
RELEASE DATE: 2008-08-19
RIP DATE: 2008-08-28

Track List
----------
1. Baby of Riots 0:43
2. Certificate 3:29
3. The Breaks 3:32
4. Something Up There This Way 4:58
Comes
5. Take Away The Landscape 2:45
6. Strange Kicks 3:58
7. Opaque 3:26
8. Worried But Not Well 4:33
9. Compass Commands 3:28
10. Statistics and the Heart of Man 4:20
11. Upping the Mandate 5:15
12. Between 1&2 3:11

Release Notes:

Just over a year ago, it really seemed like 31Knots was getting somewhere. After
a number of albums, their promise really started to take shape with Talk Like
Blood and the Polemics EP. And 2007’s The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere
made good on that promise. It was as expansive as its title, without any of that
name’s ambiguity. It combined their skewed guitar rock with elements of harsh
electronica, and rode a three-ring circus of drama where Joe Haege served as the
resident hocker, shouting his political diatribes with just enough
self-deprecation to make them work. The band looked to have hit their stride.

Which is what makes Worried Well so perplexing, and disappointing. The
progression they’d shown on their last few records hits a wall here, and the
album retreads old ideas while stripping them of their strengths. The result is
an album that is not only uneven, but lacks the knockout punches that kept any
of the band’s previous albums afloat even when they went off course.

Right off the bat, something seems off. “Certificate”—the first real track after
an unnecessary intro track—sounds too polished, the band’s usual guitar edge
sanded down and tamed. “The Breaks” tries to incorporate the blips of
electronica that worked so well on Days and Nights, but rather than bolster the
track, they draw attention to how little is going on in the song. Even the new
sweetness built into Haege’s shout—which is one of a few nice new additions to
their sound—can’t make the song more than an awkward whine. “Take Away the
Landscape” is mirrored after some more textured tracks from the band’s past,
such as “Everything in Letters”, but it ignores the band’s sense of rhythm,
which is the one thing they can’t operate without.

The album does have moments that work, in their way. “Something Up Here This Way
Comes” is a fuzzed-out rocker, with a nice combination of scuffed atmosphere and
irrepressible energy. And “Strange Kicks” is easily the best track, with
rolling, quirky piano verses that break apart into hand-clapped and
group-shouted choruses, all wrapped in an affective distance. In that song, you
can feel the band’s frustration more than when having Haege shouting it at you.

But even with those bright spots, the album sets itself up to fail. Haege’s
political ranting here is played straight, with little in the way of irony, and
it comes off as irritatingly pretentious. He seems to be shouting down to his
audience, instead of shouting for change along with them. Worried Well is also a
poorly-timed and unfailingly negative record released in a time that, for people
on Joe Haege’s side of the fence, should be full of hope and possibility. For
those hoping for a change in the political climate—and 31Knots surely is (and
they’re hardly alone)—now should be the moment when they embrace new chances
rather than clinging to old or lingering frustrations. And when Haege sings “You
live on a black list” in “The Breaks”, invoking once again a Big Brother
picture, it rings empty. 31Knots have shown before that they can oppose the
establishment with thoughtful and fun music, but they don’t seem to be having
any fun on Worried Well. They sound worn out by the struggle in a time where one
more burst of energy, from them or anyone, can go a long way.

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