Aural Fixations
AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB
Love Songs For Patriotsd
(Merge)
When a beloved band reunites after a stretch of time as long as a decade, I'm always cautious. Not about acquiring the album, mind you—that's a given. But I'm always worried that at best the reunion will merely rehash past triumphs and at worst stumble miserably. Such fears are lessened when it comes to a band like American Music Club; after all, AMC never became rich and famous in its first life, so I know the musicians didn't reconvene for the money. Besides, its saga always felt unfinished. Still, upon receipt of Love Songs For Patriots, the band's first album in 10 years, I was torn between wanting to kick dogs out of the way to the stereo or putting it quietly on the shelf along with the other AMC records without having to actually listen to it and possibly be disappointed.
I shouldn't have had even a trickle of doubt. Amazingly, despite the long years since AMC has been active, Love Songs For Patriots is a masterpiece. This band hasn't lost a stroke, making a record that sounds like the musicians never stopped playing together. The chemistry between singer Mark Eitzel's weathered moan and emotionally yearning songs, guitarist Vudi's unconventional riffs and fills and the supple rhythms of bassist Dan Pearson and drummer Tim Mooney is just as potent now as it is on AMC classics like Everclear (yes, nitpickers, I know Mooney didn't play on that one) and Mercury. While famed steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan—whose otherworldly tones gave the older music such a unique atmosphere—is missed, new kid Marc Capelle fills his shoes just fine, adding with keyboards and trumpet the same background theatrics while still contributing his own ideas. Love Songs is the sound of a group in its prime, with the preceding decade seeming more like a vacation than a breakup. Anyone who thought AMC was solely Eitzel's baby will be pleasantly reminded of how much of a real band it is.
Speaking of Eitzel, as usual his songs form the backbone of the AMC sound, and on Love Songs he contributes a startlingly strong batch. As with so many artists in the past few years, the tunesmith is concerned with the direction his country has taken and wants to express his feelings on it. But Eitzel's not going to write political polemics and set them to music. Instead he appropriates the language of our current sociopolitical conflicts and uses it to conflate the personal and the political in ways that keep them inextricably linked. "Ladies and Gentlemen," which borrows from George W. Bush's infamous speech following the 9/11 attacks, and "America Loves the Minstrel Show" are straightforwardly political, especially the latter, with lines like "It's the fake who claims to always know what's real/And millions all want to bathe in his glow" that leave no doubt on which side of the fence Eitzel stands. But other tunes, like "Patriot's Heart," "Job to Do" and "Song of the Rats Leaving the Sinking Ship," point fingers less at the current rulers than at the apathetic hordes who allowed them to come to power. Or perhaps they simply criticize faithless friends and lovers—the cuts work either way. "Your indecision is poison/Worse than broken bones or the coffin," he declares in "Rats." Pundits have long argued that the political is the personal and vice versa, and Eitzel obviously understands this intimately.
Of course, the personal has always been Eitzel's most pressing concern, and Love Songs has a truckload of songs that peel back the skin and pry open the ribcage. The tortured souls in "Home" ("I started hating my own skin") and "Mantovani the Mind Reader" ("What kills your soul is the pain you make") feel like old friends from other albums, still as lonely and confused as they've ever been. The narrator of "Myopic Books" looks for solace from his own misery in the comfort of a bookstore—"All I wanted from you was some tomorrow/But it's okay—I'll find a bookstore/And buy Saul Bellow." Eitzel revisits a familiar specter in "Another Morning," once again invoking the name of his long-lost lover Kathleen, gently rubbing salt into his oldest wound. Fortunately he finds a reason to go on: "It's when you wake up and you're glad you're breathing/It's when you wake up and you're glad you're living." He leaves his usual poetic imagery behind on "Love Is," stating simply "I'm sorry I made you cry" in a voice that indicates knowledge of the gesture's futility. Not all is melancholy resignation, however—the soulful "Only Love Can Set You Free" makes clear his assertions that the good will ultimately overwhelm the bad. The song is also one of the most instantly appealing of the baker's dozen tunes. Like every other track on here, it's a near-perfect melding of singer, song and band, the work of artists in sync with the muse and each other.
Love Songs For Patriots is an excellent piece of work that disproves F. Scott Fitzgerald's adage about there being no second acts in American lives. Of course, after one listen, you'll be convinced that, for American Music Club, the curtain never came down. Michael Toland [buy it]
