{"id":71514,"date":"2019-10-23T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=71514"},"modified":"2019-10-21T11:35:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T16:35:13","slug":"generationals-reader-as-detective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2019\/10\/23\/generationals-reader-as-detective\/","title":{"rendered":"Generationals: Reader As Detective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"You don\u2019t have to like Stranger Things<\/em> to enjoy Generationals’ new album\u2014but it helps.<\/p>\n

Every decade has its day, and I suppose it\u2019s the 80s’ turn to get monetized. Back when your mom was dressed up in a puffy lam\u00e9 ball gown and your dad was playing football for the coach, all the cool kids were shoveling out to see Grease 2<\/em> and listening to \u201cRock This Town\u201d on the way there. Nostalgia is nothing new. Grant Widmer and Ted Joyner seem to understand that.<\/p>\n

The New Orleans-based duo describes themselves as \u201cstudents of an analog school actualized in a digital medium\u201d (eye roll). They feel most comfortable \u201creveling in this juxtaposition\u201d (second, more dramatic eye roll). Pretension aside, it doesn\u2019t take a genius to figure out what Generationals are on about. These punks wanna pluck the New Wave outta 1982 and drop it into the late 2010s, where it can breathe and grow, and certainly be thankful for having avoided that whole rock revival mess.<\/p>\n

But does their latest album, Reader as Detective<\/em>, do more than regurgitate New Order synth licks?<\/p>\n

Well\u2014er\u2014yes.<\/p>\n

Back to Stranger Things<\/em> (which I bring up not because the opening track \u201cI\u2019ve Been Wrong Before\u201d sounds like the theme song set in a major key, though it totally does). Stranger Things<\/em> sits at the head of this whole 80s phase everybody seems to be going through all of a sudden. Yeah, it\u2019s a cash grab, but what\u2019s smart about the show is how it incorporates all these 80s aesthetics and allows them to be fully realized in a modern, episodic mode of storytelling. Generationals wants the same thing, only musically.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough theory you snoot. Does it slap?\u201d<\/p>\n

Caught between antiquity and modernity, Reader<\/em> is plunged into that expanding ocean of eighties-gone-ethereal. Which isn\u2019t to say it hasn\u2019t got some serious bops. \u201cBreaking Your Silence,” one of three singles, comes off like a crossbreed of BRONCHO and The War on Drugs. It\u2019s a solid representation of the more contemporary side of the album. Then there\u2019s \u201cGatekeeper.” It\u2019s funky, heavy on the base, in the tradition of ye olde thatcher-era dance hall jams. \u201cA List of the Virtues\u201d is the most balanced of all ten tracks and probably the best song on the album. It\u2019s where they come closest to realizing their goal of uniting past and present in order to create a future most groove-alicious.<\/p>\n

So yes, it slaps.<\/p>\n

The lyrics here are ineffectual in that poignant way only New Romantic synth pop is capable of. If they are politically motivated, it\u2019s in that Depeche Mode, \u201cPeople Are People\u201d sense where it\u2019s too vague to really bite. Take \u201cI Turned My Back on the Written Word\u201d for example. The hook is some looped nonsense from an unreleased b-side, and it\u2019s the catchiest thing on the whole dang LP!<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s title, Reader As Detective<\/em>, is all you need to know to gauge the lyrical value. It probably means something to the artist, but to the audience it just sounds catchy.<\/p>\n

So, is Reader<\/em> as good as the New Wave-ers it derives from? No. Maybe the energy that could have put these songs over the edge got lost in production. Still, I\u2019ll take this over new Echo and the Bunnymen any day of the week.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear, Generationals doesn\u2019t need to be mistaken for anything other than what they are: a steady outfit putting out three-minute tracks you can really groove to\u2014which is more than you can say about most of what passes for \u201cdream-pop\u201d these days. Reader as Detective<\/em> is solid front to back. Give it a whirl next time your friend passes you the aux. Maybe throw some Modern English in there; she won\u2019t notice.
\n
\nRecommended If You Like: The War On Drugs, BRONCHO, MGMT, Carriers
\nRecommended Tracks: 2 (I Turned My Back on the Written Word), 3 (Breaking Your Silence), 4 (A List Of Virtues)
\nDo Not Play: 6 (Xeno Bobby)
\nWritten by Lily Swanson on 10\/18\/2019 <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Generationals offer visions of the future through New Wave stylings of the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21313,"featured_media":71515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3235,3230,181],"tags":[2415,8213,8401],"class_list":["post-71514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-music-reviews","category-new-music-rotation","category-rock-rotation","tag-generationals","tag-lily-swanson","tag-reader-as-detective"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/generationals.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}