Relient K: The Anatomy Of The Tongue In Cheek (2001)

Tracks:

1. Kick-off
2. Pressing On
3. Sadie Hawkins Dance
4. Down in Flames
5. Maybe Its Maybelline
6. Breakdown
7. Those Words Are Not Enough
8. For Moments I Feel Faint
9. Lion Wilson
10. I'm Lion-O
11. What Have You Been Doing Lately?
12. May the Horse Be with You
13. My Way or The Highway
14. Breakfast at Timpani's
15. The Rest is Up to You
16. Failure to Excommunicate
17. Less is More

A year later and the Canton rockers are back again with another serving of fun and meaningful "pop punk" (another apt descriptor for the K's melodically frenzied works).  This time around, Cushman has been replaced by David Douglas, and the drums do seem a bit more aggressive and loud, and the tempos have picked up, adding more of a punk feel to the tunes.  The band loads up the track list with a fast and furious seventeen numbers, another nod to punk, where quantity can supersede quality at times.  I could have used two or three less tunes, I suppose, but at least there are no real clunkers or deadwood, just more melody, mayhem, and lots of  cute wordplay, along with the now-standard pop culture parades.

The guys start things off with the two best songs, "Pressing On" and "Sadie Hawkins Dance."  The two songs illustrate the double-edged sword that Thiessen and his associates wield on this and future efforts.  "Pressing" is an inspirational, powerful rocker that's an anthem for perseverance and hope in the midst of stress and doubt.  It has the shimmering harmonies, some very cranky but driving guitars, and a coda with one of Thiessen's best lines: "You (God) look down on me, but You don't look down on me at all," after which he quotes the theme for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."  It's a meaningful, spiritual song in a very attractive, sweaty package.  

"Sadie," on the other hand, is an innocent piece of radio pop.  There's no real lesson or moral to the story: "Sadie Hawkins dance/in my khaki pants/there's nothing better...(insert high pitched Oh-oh-oh here)...Girls ask the guys/it's always a surprise/there's nothing better/Do you like my sweater?"  Essentially the story of a nerd who gives a speech that impresses the hot girl enough that she asks him to the dance.  Just another high school mini-drama.  But I dare you to NOT sing along.  My wife never failed to sing along with this tune on the radio back when it came out as a single, almost to the point where I loathed the thing.  Almost.

And therein lies the duality: On the one hand, Thiessen & Co. come up with a series of fun, seemingly inconsequential tunes that do nothing but incite one's guilty pleasure and/or nostalgia.  That, and here's where he really starts to pull out the pithy wordplay that almost but not quite goes over the line into ApologetiX-ish cornball-isms.  "Maybe It's Maybelline" has nothing to do with make-up, but is about who to assign the blame to when things go wrong.  "May the Horse Be with You" seems to be just a string of equine metaphors and puns, and Thiessen's delivery on "What Have You Been Doing Lately" is so ragged and over-the-top that I can't take it seriously.  The songs are still fun, however.

But then he throws in a brace of deceptively hard-hitting spiritual numbers that really cut through all the frenetic tempos and harmonies and make contact.  We get "Down in Flames," a critique of the intra-church friendly fire that results in wounded comrades and, in extreme cases, lost souls.  But Thiessen doesn't just point the finger at the crowd, he's got four pointing back at himself: "I'm part of the problem, I confess/But I've gotta get this off my chest."  There's the worshipful "Those Words Are Not Enough," with the great line, "I lay my life before You, and I'm not getting up."  And the confessional "For The Moments I Feel Faint," K's first full-on acoustic song, whose chorus pleads "Never underestimate my Jesus/You're telling me there's no hope/I'm telling you you're wrong."  So for every "I'm Lion-O" you've got two "serious" tunes, like the piano-driven closer "Less is More," a straight-up prayer to Jesus to take the singer's offering of prideful mistakes as an act of worship.

Ah yes, "Lion-O."  My favorite song and guilty pleasure off of the album.  I am that nerd that watched Thundercats back in the day, who was attracted to Cheetara and laughed every time Schnarf said, "I'd rather not."  It's what makes this album great, these heartfelt confessions and admonitions mingled with teenage nostalgia, commercial jingles and cartoon themes.  Attention, Chris Rice:  This is the kind of music that the Thundercats would play if they got saved.