Brendan Kelly/Joe McMahon Wasted Potential

I like to call this album, "14 Acoustic Songs from 2 Guys who Probably Shouldn't be Singers." Actually, that's not true. I'm not that stupid. But that is perhaps a good summary of what this album is. Like the album I reviewed before this, both of these guys come from harder punk bands - The Lawrence Arms and Smoke or Fire respectively - and are here playing mostly acoustic versions of songs from those bands. Unlike the previous album, however, neither of these guys should probably be trying to do prettier versions of their songs, as they both definitely exhibit the seedier side of punk vocals. The harsh quality of their voices definitely originally drove me away from their bands originally, though I have come to appreciate their unique styles and thus come to appreciate their bands. So in the end, despite what I have said, this is actually maybe an album worth noting.

I began to notice pretty quickly once I moved past my initial dislike of Kelly's vocals, that some of the lyric writing in the Lawrence Arms was actually very beautifully poetic. These acoustic versions then give these lyrics a greater chance to shine than in the rougher electric versions from the full band. This makes the song choices particularly important then, and songs like "Quincentuple Your Money," "Like a Record Player," and "Requiem Once Again Revisited," definitely shine with emotion and power on this record.

Joe McMahon is perhaps an even more brusque singer then Kelly, but the two choose to embrace this fact on the album. Rather than attempting to "pretty" up their songs, they push for a more country/western style that allows the gruffness to seem perhaps even more fitting. This still doesn't do particularly much for me on McMahon's half of the album, but that's probably largely due to my lack of familiarity with his original band. I definitely have to give the guy credit for putting his foot out there and giving something like this a try.

Despite my doubts about this album, it proved to be perhaps one of the most unique acoustic transformation experiences I've ever had. It actually leaves me wanting more, which is exactly what I would hope an album is able to do for me.

Joey Cape/Tony Sly acoustic

Joey Cape and Tony Sly are the front men of Lagwagon and No Use for a Name, respectively. If you know both of those bands and know how you feel about those bands, this album is probably only going to continue those feelings. While these bands are typically known for a heavier, full band sound in the vein of punk rock, there's nothing here that's going to blow anybody away.

The album consists of 6 songs from each performer, and of the 6 songs 5 are acoustic versions of songs from each person's respective band and then 1 is written for the album. Personally, of the two bands I've always favored Lagwagon, and as I said that only continues here. Tony Sly opens the album, and while I enjoy his performances, for the most part I feel his half falls short. Of the two, Sly seems to be the one more directly adapting his songs to acoustic, playing and singing them hardly any differently then he would normally. While some of the band's fans might actually prefer this, I can't help but feel this only makes the acoustic version pointless to begin with. To me his most notable song is "On the Outside," which seems to be the most differently developed.

Joey Cape then takes over with a very interesting twist on his old song "Move the Car." This song and several of the songs following it seemed to suggest that Cape really took the time to develop these songs for an acoustic sound. His songs aren't just playing the normal song but with an acoustic guitar as opposed to electric. Many of the songs see not only new instrumentation but in some cases changed parts and even different lyrics. I was particularly pleased with "Tragic Vision," a song from Lagwagon's first release back in 1992. It was nice to see a fresh coat of paint applied to this (at the time) 12 year old song. I was never a big fan of the original, but the acoustic version proved very appealing to me. I was also excited to get the song "Twenty-Seven," here, possibly my favorite, or at least one of my favorite, Lagwagon song(s) of all time, from what is certainly my favorite of their albums.

Normally, when "Punk" goes acoustic, the result isn't particularly interesting. Historically, I tend to find myself more disappointed than anything else with these sorts of releases. But I think overall, any fan of these bands can certainly find something to enjoy here, and some of these songs could even possibly stand on their own as good acoustic rock of their own right. All in all, a pretty good album.

The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour

I can't help but feel that with each album, The Weakerthans have worked on better defining themselves and what they want to be, and each album has seen an improvement in the quality of the music because of it. Or at least, that's how I felt about all their work up to Reconstruction Site (2003), which granted was only their third album. But it lead me to really looking forward to this, their fourth album, and I honestly anticipated it as possibly being the best album of 2007.

Overall, I feel like this album is just an attempt to do Reconstruction Site 2: The Reckoning. Almost everything gives that impression away to me. The title, the song pacing, the overall sound, and that fact that they did write literally a direct sequel to a song from their previous album. "Plea From A Cat Named Virtute" was a brilliant song from Reconstruction. It was written from the point of view of his cat, who was tired of all his emo-ish depressed whining and was pushing him to getting on with his life and returning to being a social being. "Virtute The Cat Explains Her Departure" is a fairly pretty song in Reunion, but it looses its effect for several reasons. One reason is that the song has basically already been done on the last album. Another reason is that's much more obviously from the perspective of a cat ("After scrapping with the ferals and the tabby/Let you brush my matted fur/How I'd kneed into your chest while you were sleeping/Shallow breathing made me purr"). The previous album was much more subtle in its delivery, leaving you to infer the fact that it was about a cat from context clues. It wasn't hard to figure out, but I can't help but feel it's an overall better song for not practically spelling it out as blatantly as "...Explains Her Depature" does.

My biggest complaint with this album is "Elegy for Gump Worsley." I can appreciate art when it's done right, but this song is just such an obvious attempt to be flat out "experimental" and "artsy," and such obvious attempts rarely cause any feeling in me save for nausea. "(Hospital Vespers)" and "(Past-Due)" from Reconstruction Site were similarly artsy types, but those songs were done right because they were still songs, and they didn't completely break the flow of the album. "Elegy" isn't terrible, but it just makes me sad that they would do something like this at all.

And all and all, I don't feel that at any point this album is actually terrible. None of the songs are all that bad. But they just don't reach the level that Reconstruction did. That album was filled with brilliantly written, thoughtful, introspective songs with plenty of references to high literature. This album maintains some of the song writing wit of the previous album, but none of the songs really seem as deep or well thought-out as their previous album counterparts. It just really feels to me like they devolved a bit here. Though Reunion seems as though it was intended as a spiritual successor to Reconstruction Site, the overall quality reminds me more of their second album. Which I guess, again, is not a bad thing, because I always liked Left and Leaving, their sophomore outing, but I had just kind of hoped that this band would continue the trend of getting better, not sinking to a previous level.

So all and all, this is by no means a bad album. It's a good album that is merely dissapointing, because I can't help but think, whenever listening to it or Reconstruction Site, that it could have been such a great album, but instead we only got a good one. The biggest shame is that it took 4 years of waiting to only be let down.