Before hearing this, I was trepidatious. Oh noes, Defiance Ohio and their clapping and acoustic guitars and camp fires and lets all hug and hold hands cos it’ll make the world better. The first track caught me a bit off guard. It wasn’t like that at all. It was more like a less good Meneguar with a violin. But at least it wasn’t quite so irksomely face punching as most “folk-punk”. And that was going to set the scene for the rest of the album. It’s still making me cringe, with it’s irritating folk punk instruments and cheesy group vocals and lyrics, but musically it’s a lot more accomplished. “The List” is catchy and quite fun, for starters. The song structures are a lot more varied and “mature” than I was expecting, but then you have tracks like “The Things Won’t Let Settle But Let Set” which are a complete jumbly mess of ideas that do not meld together at all, with a random bit of violin here and a guy shouting a bit here, and then some piano riff like in Flash Gordon.
Really, I shouldn’t be reviewing this. I find the whole genre to be a real arched-eyebrow inducer, but here I am, grumbling anyway. What a productive use of my time. So I dreamt that everyone agreed and we grew a beard and raised our beers and had a hug and the masses shouted “FUCK FOLK PUNK!”, I won’t miss it when it’s gone! I am too cynical and miserable for this unwashed musical love in, but I am not scared to admit that this is actually a pretty OK album. Musically. Just not conceptually. Recommended if you like The Levellers.
