Pop Joyride

So, I guess the cliche is that review­ers pigeon­hole artists – slic­ing and dic­ing music into gen­res, tax­o­nom­i­cally sep­a­rat­ing organic parts into the flora and fauna of an aural bios­phere. If that’s true, and I imag­ine there is some truth to it after all, bands like the Tenderhooks exist to make a reviewer’s job as dif­fi­cult as possible.

“New Ways to Butcher English” is more than just a genre-​​bending explo­ration of var­i­ous musi­cal styles by a band that can seem­ingly do it all. The record is actu­ally an emo­tional jour­ney through a world where feel­ings can’t be expressed one way or the other. There’s a mish-​​mash of expres­sion that winds its way through the tunes and trans­forms bits and pieces of each track into some­thing that is more than the sum of its parts.

The vocals and arrange­ments are rem­i­nis­cent of Blind Melon’s slacker blues sound that emerged from the grunge-​​crusted ’90’s.  Shannon Hoon’s sickly sweet vocal style and haunt­ing sense of melody are chan­neled into this record with an eerie accu­racy. There’s also a cer­tain whole­some, rootsy qual­ity to these songs that brings to mind home­town rock from the likes of Melloncamp, or even Springsteen.

This album is hard to clas­sify, but, at it’s heart, it’s pure pop. It’s intel­li­gent – maybe even smart-​​britches – and just a lit­tle jaded. But the atti­tude always feels a lit­tle tongue and cheek. There’s a deep breath of opti­mism that floats through this col­lec­tion of songs. It’s this breath that res­cues the record from bit­ter­ness; it exchanges bit­ter­ness for bittersweet.

And I’m left with just the slight­est whis­per of melan­choly; the faintest hint of hope.

My favorite track on this disc is “Heaven and Hell.” Conveniently, this song also proves my point; this song really sums up the char­ac­ter of the entire album.

It opens with rau­cous, dirty gui­tars and gritty, growl­ing vocals. The lyrics smell of despair: “There is no umbil­i­cal cord to pull you through all the sad­ness and the pain. I think I see heaven and hell.” And the band seems to protest this state of affairs – fre­netic rhythms, whiny gui­tars and a dirty bass line com­plain loudly between vocal lines. Until the last line: “Just close my eyes as I kiss you on the roof.”

Then the song opens up, like pulling the cur­tains on a dark room. As light pours in, every­thing changes. Guitars trade grit for tin­kle; kick drum gives way to high-​​hat and splash; the bass light­ens its step. And then the key­board takes up its song, stand­ing in for the vocals. A beau­ti­ful, light melody fills the newly-​​brightened space. For a moment, I’m the one kiss­ing on a moon­lit rooftop.

That’s how this album works. By set­ting and under­cut­ting a mood over and over again, by refus­ing to let the lis­tener set­tle into a genre and get com­fort­able in a cat­e­gory, this record at first jars you, then entrances you. From gritty to atmos­pheric and back again, these songs ulti­mately wrap you up and tell you a story. And, like any good story, this one hangs out on the back porch of your mem­ory and hums you to sleep.