I got pretty into Rainer Maria four or five years ago, right after they released A Better Version of Me, but they really fell off my radar for a while after that. In 2003, they released an album (Long Knives Drawn) that I listened to a few times and then never thought about again. Somehow it just didn’t strike me.
So when I saw a few advance tracks from their upcoming album Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, I didn’t expect too much. However, I was pleasantly surprised on first listen, and after a few more was re-converted.
On past releases the band has, at times, walked the edge between emo and caricature-of-emo (given their choice to name the band after Rilke this should hardly be surprising), but this record is virtually free of those occasional missteps. It’s a bit of a cliche to talk about bands maturing, but I think it’s pretty appropriate here. The exuberance of the past is not gone, but it is now tempered, both in terms of lyrical choices, and in terms of the sound.
The edges are still there, but they’ve been smoothed a bit. Caithlin De Marrais sings with more confidence and a little less warbling (and Kyle Fischer, bless him, has been completely relieved of singing duties), the hooks are cleaner (and, y’know, exist which wasn’t always the case), and the band just sounds a lot tighter. They still remind me quite a lot of early Sunny Day Real Estate, but the arrangements are a lot cleaner and the guitars are a lot friendlier than they once were.
The album has a few weaker moments, to be sure. The cover of “I’ll Keep It With Mine” (written by Dylan and sung by Nico) in particular is rather uninspired. I’ll kill any indie cred I might have by admitting I’d never heard the original until after listening to Rainer Maria’s version. But even so, I can say they haven’t added much. To be honest, it just sounds a little dull. It’s 5 minutes without any variation, and her voice (while great on the more punk/emo influenced numbers) just doesn’t do sultry very well. There aren’t any other songs I would say are bad, though the middle of the album (Terrified, Cities Above, Already Lost) is not nearly as strong as the bookends.
The album opens with this track, following the tried-and-true technique of kicking off with your biggest-sounding song. It’s about finding love, or maybe just meaning, as the world is collapsing around you. Whether its a metaphorical collapse or whether it’s meant to be an apocalyptic love story is not totally clear. Really, I like either interpretation. It’s got a great ominous, imposing beat, which only makes it that much better at the end when she insists over and over “I’ve got a plan, I’m gonna find you, at the end of the world.”
This song really drives home what I said about them maturing. I don’t think it would have fit in at all on some of their earlier releases. In some ways, that’s a shame because, to be honest, it’s slightly blander fare. Still, as I’ve said before, there’s nothing all that great about making “difficult” records. While this song may be less adventurous, it more than makes up for it by exemplifying what makes jangle-pop glorious, resplendent with “woooos” and a choppy little drum beat that virtually screams “dance to me!”
Life of Leisure
This is probably my favorite of their more “old-school” songs on the record. It’s got a lot more of the punk flavor, though it’s still a lot more Replacements than it is Dead Kennedys. The drumming is a highlight here. Like Ringo at his best (that’s right, I said it), it manages to surround the song while they thrash along.