Aden - Topsiders
(Teenbeat)
I hadn't planned on writing about this album; I liked it all right, but I really didn't have much to say about it. However, upon reading Kevin Adickes's well, let's say, "review" on Pitchfork, I felt moved to write something that wasn't egregiously and massively unfair to the band.
It's definitely one thing to not like an album, and then write an evenhanded criticism of why you don't like an album. "It fits into so-and-so a context but fails to meet the standards of whatever, and such-and-such isn't as creative as it could be" or whatever. We all understand what criticism should be: an attempt to understand the triangularity of a piece of music, that is, the relationship that exists between the artist, the art, and the listener. The triangle exists in the current milieu, so whatever the zeitgeist is, that will also come into play. So, those are the factors we as critics should look for, and then write about one or all of those points depending on which ones merit interesting prose.
Or we can just fuck around and write about how an album sounds like an old pederast fucking an adult diaper full of shit.
You know, whatever. The point I'm trying to make, is that, for any serious piece of art, it behooves us as writers to at least try to see where the band was coming from, what they were trying to accomplish, what the expectations they have created with their body of work are or failing that, what interesting ideas are raised by the album's contributions to a certain genre. There should be some level of charity operating here in order to avoid the pitfalls that Adickes fell into.
With that being said and contrary to what I may have made you think, the latest Aden album, Topsiders, isn't that good. One of the great things about Aden is that they've been one of the few indie pop bands to infuse their guitar work with real creativity and complexity, eschewing the boring typical chords of a lot of tepid Teenbeat junk in favor of dual guitar lines that play off each other. Somewhere around the last song of their previous album, however, a gentle Fahey-esqe vibe began to penetrate the otherwise dense guitar-work. While not a bad thing in itself, it's a bit disappointing to see the fevered guitarring replaced by a more tranquil finger-picking, not that finger-picked guitar can't be complex or interesting, but on this album (where the trend continued), it just comes off as a bit bland.
The other disappointment is that Jeff Gramm's lyrics haven't really progressed. While I don't think the musical progression of the album has been in a favorable direction, one cannot assert that it is not progression, that is, experimenting with a different sound, and for that alone, they deserve credit. However, lyrically, Gramm is mired in the boring everyday of indie pop, and while that's worked for him previously, the quotidian junk just ain't cutting it when the music also becomes less interesting.
Overall, if you already like Aden a lot, get the album, it'll disappoint, probably, but it's still enjoyable. If you don't really like Aden, but are curious, check out Black Cow or Hey 19, both fun albums. If you were never a fan to begin with, this one won't change your mind.
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