Relient K: Two Lefts Don't Make A Right...But Three Do (2003)

Tracks:

1. Chap Stick, Chapped Lips and Things Like Chemistry
2. Mood Rings
3. Falling Out
4. Forward Motion
5. In Love with the 80's (Pink Tux to the Prom)
6. College Kids
7. Trademark
8. Hoopes I Did it Again
9. Over Thinking
10. I Am Understood?
11. Getting into You
12. (untitled)
13. Gibberish
14. From End to End
15. Jefferson Aero Plane

 So...I guess four lefts go up?  In the "Forever 21"  world of Relient K, geometry is merely a metaphor for morality and/or relationships, I guess.  On their third album the band continue their fixation with pop culture, puns, and nostalgia, and also throw in a good measure of teenage drama.  "Chap Stick..." starts out as a day at the theme park, with the singer bemoaning his lack of cell phone minutes, then segues into a completely different song about the titular chemistry.  There's a witty song suggesting that girls should wear "Mood Rings" to warn their respective boys what emotional state they are in, and another that recites the struggles of "College Kids" in navigating student loan debt (tell me about it), relationships and the job market.  

At first listen, the band seems to have added an extra layer of packaging to their message, as there are no overt prayer or praise songs on Two Lefts.  Only "Getting Into You" makes any mention of God, and it's a good one: "I'm getting into you /Because I've got to be/You're essential to survive/I'm going to love you with my life."  Many songs speak to God on a personal level, and often use human relationships as a metaphor for connecting with God.  Or not: In "Trademark" the singer is speaking to an Unnamed Someone Who Is Very Important, and confessing his tendencies to run away from rather than toward that Someone.  He even goes as far as to declare: "I'll kill the thing that turns me away/Amputate the arm that will disobey."  Sounds a little emo there, Matty T.

Musically, there's not a huge progression from Anatomy, although Thiessen plays more keyboards on this one, and his vocal delivery seems a little more nuanced, with everything from breathy whispers to nasal nerdiness to a few shouts here and there.  He's piling the lyrics on, too:  Lots of cutesy sayings and wordplay.  And there's the obligatory nostalgia trip in "I'm in Love with the 80s," which reads like a script for one of those VH-1 reminiscence shows with the similar title: "Ocean Pacific shirt (insert comedian comment here)...Left ear piercing (insert celebrity comment here)..."

So what we're left with is the singles, and they range from the precious ("Chap Stick.."), to the anthemic ("Forward Motion") to the one with a good chorus but little else ("I Am Understood?").  "Motion" is the best song on the record, a song whose construction reminds me a lot of those classic Def Leppard songs from the 80s (specifically, "Foolin").  It's not so much a standard verse/pre-chorus/chorus progression, but a sequence of hooks: The punkish "Whoa-oa" hook, the fast "I got evicted" hook, the slight break of "When car crashes occur" hook, then the Big Hook and best lines on the album: "To experience the bittersweet/To taste defeat then brush my teeth."  We finally get to the "chorus" which mentions the title, but it's slow and sans drums, so it almost feels anti-climactic.  It's modern songwriting at its best: throw together a stack of hooky verses and bundle 'em with a big beat.  Chorus?  Who needs a chorus?

Two Lefts doesn't blaze any new trails as far as style, although it does take a step or two off the beaten path to look at the flora and fauna along the way.  And really, unless the band decided to fire a guitarist, hire a pianist, and go for a whole new sound, there isn't a whole lot of trail to be blazed.  Pop punk, like any other kind of punk, is limited in its scope and development.  So it's up to Matty T & the boyz to find new ground, and with their knowledge of melody, hooks, and the zeitgeist of the 21st Century, they've got a good shot to do just that.