Quasi
The Sword of God
[Touch and Go]
Rating: 6.0
Irony is kind of like butter. If something seems too dull or sugary, you put
some butter on it to give its taste some semblance of body and depth. The
butter tastes good, so you put on more butter. Soon, whatever tastes accompany
the butter cease to matter. You just want more of that butter. Yummy, yummy
butter. You refuse to acknowledge the value of anything that is non-buttery,
insisting that it's trite and unsophisticated. "Sugar is for kids," you
shout, "I want my goddamn butter!" You begin to hate the sugar-eaters in all
their smug simplicity. Everything you eat, and everything you cook, simply
must have butter. It becomes a way of life.
But it's not long before things start to go awry. Your friends get sick of
you always forcing them to eat your buttery treats. While you can't get
enough of it, it makes them feel sick and heavy. But you don't care-- they
just don't understand the complex texture and full, rich body of butter.
Friendless, you begin to sink into a state of depression. All those years
immersed in butter have finally caught up with you, and its heaviness is
beginning to wear on you. You've gained hundreds of pounds, and you can
slowly feel your arteries hardening. Alone, bloated, and miserable, you die.
You fucking die.
Irony hasn't been clinically proven to lead to arteriosclerosis, but it does
hold true that it's best when used sparingly and with great skill. Quasi has
always been dear to me because they're one of the few bands that manages to
lay the irony on thick without being too dark or pretentious. On Featuring
"Birds", the juxtaposition of Sam Coomes' massive pop hooks and his bleak
lyrical outlook seemed to blend together perfectly-- like a goofy-faced clown
telling you that have lung cancer. Except even more perfect.
The greatest part about Featuring "Birds" was that even if Coomes had
been singing about happy elves prancing through fields of tall, green grass,
the album would have rocked. The songs were just that good. Thankfully, the
lyrics spread a message we could all relate to: life blows. But on the
record's follow-up, 1999's Field Studies, the message remained
unchanged, and without the brilliant, catchy, concise songs to back them up,
the lyrics lost a lot of their punch. Without the songs, all you're left with
is shtick. And shtick gets old pretty fast, as proven by the infuriatingly
uneven The Sword of God.
Like most bands that don't suck, Quasi is at their best when they sound like
themselves. Yeah, I know, I know, bands should try to branch out in new
directions and all that. But when a band succeeds in exploring new directions
after already mastering one sound (which is beyond rare), they generally do
so by bringing the better elements of their old sound into the new mix. If
Quasi were to record a sprawling guitar rock album with hooks the likes of
those on Featuring "Birds," I would applaud my ass off. But this is
not the case.
Indeed, the best parts of The Sword of God are the parts that embrace
Coomes' ability to write driving pop hooks. "It's Raining" features his
trademark Roxichord swagger and a memorable, catchy melody. This is good.
Sure, it sounds like the stuff on Featuring "Birds," but this is
compensated for by the fact that it's just really, really good. Slightly
less infectious but similarly successful is "A Case of No Way Out," a darker,
more complex song that makes nice use of trademark indie rock boy-girl vocal
arrangements without slipping into cloying inanity.
These two songs both have their roots firmly planted in Quasi's pessimistic
pop song tradition. Unfortunately, the efforts made by the band to expand
their oeuvre on The Sword of God just fall flat. Long-winded
instrumental passages, extended exploration of new instruments, and more
bird noises do not a good record make, and The Sword of God makes this
all too evident. Exploring new territory only pays off if you're comfortable
with it and you have quality material to back it up. And that's usually not
the case here.
Still, one has to appreciate that Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss are still trying.
If some of the new directions explored on The Sword of God had really
great songs behind them, the resulting album could have been fantastic. But
in keeping with the band's general outlook on life, their records just keep
getting worse. Where's the butter in that?
-Matt LeMay