Aural Fixations
THE MAKERS
Everybody Rise!
(Kill Rock Stars)
To a lot of rock & roll fans, the ability to play a simplified, dirty style of guitar-based rock that prides itself on its energy, aggression and basic song structures, AKA "garage rock," equals authenticity. If you can slam out power chords (using only your high volume for distortion), scream like you're pissed at every person you've ever met and make 4/4 time jump like a barefoot toddler on a hot sidewalk, you're enshrined in the underground pantheon. Unfortunately, being good at garage rock can also become a trap; it's a limited form for any ambitious musician, yet the fans cry "treason" at any overt attempt to alter the formula. (Subtle stylistic changes are usually rewarded, however. There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I'm not going to bother to find it.) Plenty of bands step over the garage punk line only to be vilified.
So what's an artist to do when he or she wants to expand beyond three chords and elementary riffs? In the case of the Makers, the group simply plowed forward and assumed its audience would catch up. After establishing themselves with several records as the Northwest's heirs to the violent heritage of the Sonics, the Seattle band abruptly changed direction, putting its slashing guitars and snarling vocals to the service of glam rock dynamics and well-crafted melodies. The albums Psychopathia Sexualis, Rock Star God and Strangest Parade garnered a seemingly equal number of detractors and adherents, with the former unwilling to follow the band down a path dictated by ever-evolving songwriting and creative ambition. Too bad for them, though at least they had Stripped, the band's 2004 final goodbye to its garage rock years.
If the Makers' lost followers hated Strangest Parade, they're going to be apoplectic when they hear Everybody Rise! For its eleventh record, the quintet has added the element it's been hinting at for the last five years or so: pop. On this album the melodies are stronger, the arrangements more varied and the performances more carefully crafted than ever before. For example, "Run With Me Tonight" bounces along at a breezy lope, augmenting its hooks with a rousing series of "bah-bah-bah-bahs" in its refrain. "The Story of You and I" shifts to folk rock, its catchy melody and heartfelt performance keeping blandness far, far away. "Ordinary Human Love" is an exquisitely crafted pop ballad, led by piano and frontperson Michael Maker's superb falsetto; "Promises For Tomorrow" adopts a similar tone, almost becoming a power ballad. "She Walks in Color" adds an element of menacing Goth rock to its minor-key psychedelia. The title track's tough power pop boasts a singalong chorus that practically demands audience participation.
To be sure, the Makers have not abandoned its earlier high energy approach. The hard rock gem "Tiger of the Night" and the riff-rocking "Good as Gold" and "Matter of Degrees" fry amplifiers and synapses like the blazing anthems of yore. What makes these seeming throwbacks even more amazing, however, is how well they fit into the rest of the record. Though the Makers explore their talent in a variety of stylistic manners here, they never come off as eclectic for eclecticism's sake—the album's flow is completely organic. Everybody Rise! reaches a giddy summit in the band's career, proving once and for all that the Makers are one of America's best rock & roll acts, genre considerations be buggered. Michael Toland [buy it]
