The White Shore – Defiance, Ohio
Her Majesty’s Midwestern Island – Defiance, Ohio
In a review of Mixtapes a few days ago, I mentioned that they reminded me a lot of those folk-punk greats: Defiance, Ohio. Which got me to thinking: what’s up with Defiance, Ohio these days? Turns out they have a new record, called Midwestern Minutes.
Short verdict: it’s good, more or less what you’d expect–but in all the good ways. At 11 songs and under 30 minutes, the constant sensation is movement and energy. There certainly is not the time or space to linger with concepts. But on the whole, that’s a positive. This is record of snapshots, of moving pictures that flicker like an old film reel. Even the four and a half minute “Hairpool” which in some sense serves as the centerpiece feels tightly wound and insistent.
And that is the greatness of the album. It conveys a sense of faded pasts that are still being lived, caught in glimpses and sideways glances. You catch flashes of pain, of great joy, of kids growing up and realizing that the world is growing up faster than them. The songs rush past like cars on a freeway. You peer through the window and see lives being lived. But before you have time to truly wonder, they’re gone and another one follows behind.
Musically, it’s probably the tightest record they’ve released. The songs fit together and the arrangements are a bit more complex. The interplay between guitar and strings is surprisingly delicate. The harmonies swing quite a bit–no one would accuse them of being classically pure singers–but that is exactly as it should be. And the general DIY feel makes it all the nicer when they do belt out a gloriously pure chorus (see “Her Majesty’s Midwestern Island” for example). “A Lot to Do” has a fairly contained angular structure, but the violin comes crosswise and gives it a bit of forward momentum. “The White Shore” is surprisingly dense, with a thick percussive core that provides a necessary counterpoint to verses that threaten to careen out of control: “I will not defend a culture that makes us decide / to assimilate or die / or that defines survival / as running as fast as you can from the places you came from / forgetting the things that have made us / until all that is left is the burning in our lungs / or the pounding in our hearts that only has space for / contempt for the ones who couldn’t quite make it.” And then there’s “Dissimilarity Complex” which gives me the unmistakable vibe of Nirvana’s “About a Girl” which is entirely a good thing.
Each song has its own little glimmer of greatness, and (in this era of songs rather than albums) they also work together nicely. If there is a complaint I have it’s only that this record lacks the single incandescent moment that would vault it into that next level of greatness. But even without that, this fits comfortably among my favorite records of the year.