Review by: Hari Ashurst
A record can baffle me with its awful shortcomings. It can further baffle me by unsettling these shortcomings with moments of real greatness. This record has a name “Change. It has a maker too ”
Dismemberment Plan. “Emergency and I’ was my favourite album for a while, an honour I can’t bestow on Change. I’ve always considered it more fair than middling and as an awkward goodbye. After the longest break-up ever Dismemberment Plan have finally called it quits. And I decided to finally listen to Change again. It seems to be a sunset where “Emergency and I” was the day before the party. Its
tired and jaded. It’s odd and atonal and it happens to be very fucking
brilliant. You might have missed it the first time around. I know I did. But
the kenetic energy that soars above the mist and haze of awkward moments
elevates this album to a much greater place. It might not take you there on the
first listen. Change might not take you there
on the 33rd listen. But put it in again, you’ll get it someday.
Travis Morrison is still your favourite emotionally engaging wordsmith. Those
guitar phrases that sounded atonal and damp on first listen still change
and burst from the shackles of mediocrity and into something altogether better
eventually. But something is different. There has been a change. There
is nothing like the amorous “Back And Forth’ that graced Emergency and I’s
climax. There is nothing like the frantic “Girl O’ Clock’. It’s more mature and
focused. It’s the sound of a band that have lost and resigned. On first listen
it sounds like a losing band losing their edge. To me now it sounds like a band
that has everything to lose, but is still effortlessly coasting. And it works
for a change. “Time Bomb’ typifies my feelings about this record. “I am
a time bomb and I lay forgotten at the bottom of your heart/ I’m fine ticking
away the years, “til I blow your world apart’. Substitute the word heart for
record collection and there you have it.
There has
been a change, in fact everytime I return to this record it has changed.
This shape-shifting chameleon of a masterpiece screams change at you
from every corner. Just like this review. The Dismemberment Plan are gone, and
soon forgotten. But they will wait for that day when you decide to put change
on again. And then”¦Well, you’ll see.