Relient K: The Bird And The Beesides (2008)

  

1. Where Do I Go From Here
2. The Scene and Herd
3. At Least We Made It This Far
4. The Last, The Lost, The Least
5. The Lining Is Silver
6. There Was No Thief
7. No Reaction
8. Curl Up and Die
9. You'll Always Be My Best Friend
10. There Was Another Time In My Life
11. Beaming
12. I Just Want You to Know
13. Bee Your Man
14. Up and Up (Acoustic)
15. Wit's All Been Done Before
16. The Vinyl Countdown
17. For the Band
18. Nothing Without You
19. A Penny Loafer Saved is a Penny Loafer Earned
20. Five Iron Frenzy is Either Dead or Dying
21. Five Iron Frenzy is Either Dead or Dying (Wannabe Ska Version)
22. Who I Am Hates Who I've Been (Acoustic)
23. Here I Go (Acoustic)
24. The Stenographer (Demo)
25. Jefferson Aeroplane (Demo)
26. Hope for Every Fallen Man (Acoustic)
27. Where Do I Go (Acoustic) 

As its title suggests, The Bird and the Beesides is essentially a mixed bag of would-B-sides (sorry, had to do it), outtakes, demos, and acoustic remakes of previously-released material.  Culled from the band's many EPs over the previous seven years, it's actually a compilation of two seperate releases: The Bird and the Bee Sides EP proper, which comprises the second half of the album, and the similiarly-punned Nashville Tennis EP.  As a body of work, it's a mish-mash by design, being comprised of tracks going back to '02, but all the usual bells and whistles are present: dorky puns, sweet hummable melodies, choirboy harmonies, and a modicum of angst.  

If there's something out of the ordinary, it's the proliferation of ballads and softer-sounding songs.  There's a few rockers thrown in there, like the single, "The Last, The Lost, The Least"--penned and sung by bassist John Warne--as well as "The Vinyl Countdown" and "The Scene and the Herd."  But the most interesting tracks are these acoustic guitar and keyboard-driven confessionals, letting Thiessen and the others get a little deeper than the fast numbers would allow.  

The Nashville songs are more of a piece, of course, being recorded in one time (2008) and space (The Music City).  The theme is loosely based around the young adult relationship angst of the last few albums, but written in the context of the travelling musician and the sacrifices of plying his trade.  "Where Do I Go From Here" starts the record off on a reflective note, asking "Where do I stand/Where can I find myself again" during a phone call home.  "At Least We Made it This Far" builds on the "taking stock of life's journey" vibe, with an optimistic view to the future.  There's a lot of synthesizers in this part, adding a slightly-cheesy mildness to the proceedings--again, probably intentional.  

There seems to be a lack of strong hooks in the songs, as if the guys are scaling back the pop sensibilities in favor of mood and atmospherics.  The biggest ear-catcher for me was the relatively downbeat "There Was Another Time in My Life," with an inter-verse "Ba-da-ba-ba" that livens up an otherwise draggy 3/4 ballad.  They also take the Nashville theme literally with quite a few country stylistics and flourishes.  

The Bird EP is less remarkable, although the aforementioned rockers lift it up, especially the autobiographical "For The Band," shouting out to fans who've been to all their shows.  They even pay homage to compadres Five Iron Frenzy, who were breaking up at the time (although they've since reformed).  The acoustic "Who I Am" Hates Who I've Been" is probably the most interesting of the relics on this side.  Overall, nothing too out-of-character for the K, but something from a different angle that the usual pop punk pleasures.

Relient K: Five Score And Seven Years Ago (2007)

Tracks:

1. Pleading The Fifth (A Cappella)
2. Come Right Out and Say It
3. I Need You
4. The Best Thing
5. Forgiven
6. Must Have Done Something Right
7. Give Until There's Nothing Left
8. Devastation and Reform
9. I'm Taking You With Me
10. Faking My Own Suicide
11. Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care
12. Bite My Tongue
13. Up and Up
14. Deathbed

 After a three-year hiatus--broken only by the Apathetic EP from '05--Relient K released their next full-length album, the retrospectively-entitled Five Score and Seven Years Ago.  The band had went through some changes in the interim, reflected in the cleverly-staged cover image of five guys casting four shadows: Brian Pittman has departed and John Warne has replaced him on bass, joined by second guitarist Jon Schneck.  The addition of a second axman beefed up the band's already heavier sound, and freed Matt Thiessen to play even more piano on stage and in the studio.  

But there's more: The band is definitely growing up.  If MMHMM was the sound of the sophomores getting some upper class maturity, then Five Score is their senior prom.  The songs are definitely leaving behind the teenage melodrama and sardonic wordplay, and dealing with the big questions: Life, death, and crayons.  Okay, there's still a little of the cutesy wordplay here and there, but now the lyrics are more streamlined, desperate, and straightforward; Thiessen's got three years of growth to sing about, and he doesn't have time for Willie Aames to chime in or Panthro to warm up the ThunderTank.  After the obligatory a cappella intro, the album dives in with "Come Right Out and Say It," which picks up where "Let It All Out" left off: "Why don't you come right out and say it?  Even if the words are probably gonna hurt
I'd rather have the truth than something insincere."  The next track, "I Need You" is even more blunt: "I need you like you would not believe/You're the only thing I want cause you're everything I need."  There's less of the cleverness of yore and more immediacy and desperation, as Thiessen wants God (and his loved ones) to save him from the bad place he's found himself in.

The big hit is "Forgiven," which sets a new standard for contrition mixed with confrontation.  Beginning with a catchy keyboard riff, Thiessen dives into a two-way inquisition of sorts, acknowledging the rift between the first and second party: "And you can't see past the blood on my hands to see that you've been aptly damned to fail and fail again."  He then confesses that all of us are guilty of "thinking the thoughts whether or not we see them through," and that we've all been forgiven by the Final Judge, so we might as well lay our sins on the line and let them go.  

What really sets Five Score apart from its predecessors is the band's new preoccupation with death.  "Faking My Own Suicide," a country knockoff complete with pedal steel and banjo, presents the confession of a hurting romantic using self-harm--at least figuratively--as a manipulation tactic to earn sympathy from an estranged other.  The real "grateful dead" is the epic 11-minute closer, the morbidly appropriate "Deathbed."  A long first-person account of a wayward elder dying of lung cancer, Thiessen paints a sweeping but sad portrait of a life wasted in drinking, smoking, loveless matrimony, and bowling.  Finally, the singer sees a window of redemption open up--apparently accompanied by a chamber orchestra--and exhales his final rasp in a cry of deliverance to Jesus, portrayed by none other than Jon Forman of Switchfoot, who sings our hero into the Promised Land.  (Good casting, by the way, since Switchfoot are kind of like a musical older brother to the Canton boys.)

It's not all gloom, doom, and ka-boom: Thiessen sings the praises of his significant other in "Must Have Done Something Right," obviously taking a page out of the Bob Carlisle Playbook of Happy Accidents.  It's a nice flash of light in a largely gun metal gray block of emotional turmoil and morbid reflection.  Well, maybe that's a bit much.  The point is, the K are becoming a full-grown punk artist, and now have the actual gravitas to (gulp) be taken seriously.  

Relient K: MMHMM (2004)

Tracks:

1. The One I'm Waiting For
2. Be My Escape
3. High of 75
4. I So Hate Consequences
5. The Only Thing Worse Than Beating a Dead Horse is Betting On One
6. My Girl's Ex-Boyfriend
7. More Than Useless
8. Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet?
9. Let It All Out
10. Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
11.  Maintain Consciousness
12.  This Week the Trend
13.  Life After Death & Taxes (Failure II)
14.  When I Go Down

So what happens when a pop punk band grows up?  Not a question I was expecting to answer when I first listened to Volume 4 of the Relient K Saga, the vowel-less MMHMM.  After three installments of fast, furious, and mostly fun bright rock mayhem and melodies, the K have a very special episode about dealing with actual adult issues, specifically healing broken relationships.  Oh, the melodies and mayhem are still there, but the substance of the songs runs much deeper than pop culture and teenage drama now.  It's only been a year since Two Lefts, but the maturity and emotional intensity of Matt Thiessen's words reveal a much longer season of growth.  


The general themes of the record is remorse and reconciliation.  The remorse is demonstrated through songs like "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been," which starts out on piano and then builds up to a driving chorus in which the singer is watching a playback of his past and freeze-framing his mistakes.  "I So Hate Consequences" starts out as the frenetic romp of a man desperate to escape his situation as he impatiently waits at a stoplight, only to slow down and realize he can't run anymore: "And when the doors were closed
I heard no 'I told you so's'/I said the words I knew you knew
Oh God, Oh God I needed you."  And "Be My Escape," which begins with an uncharacteristically haunting guitar riff,  continues with the need to "get outta here" and leave behind one's faults without addressing them, but in the end, "I fought You for so long/I should have let You in/Oh how we regret those things we do/And all I was trying to do was save my own skin/But so were You."  

The reconciliation is illustrated by songs like "Which to Bury; Us or the Hatchet," a clever title and a song in which two people in conflict remember the deeper meaning of love in the midst of temporary emotions: "No, I don't hate you
don't want to fight you/You know I'll always love you/
but right now I just don't like you."  The song also features, of all things, a banjo part.  And "Let it All Out" acknowledges that sometimes healing requires painful moments: "And you said I know that this will hurt/But if I don't break your heart then things will just get worse/If the burden seems too much to bear/Remember the end will justify the pain it took to get us there."

The playing also reflects maturity, from the harder, more tense riffing, to Thiessen's ever-increasing piano playing.  In the end, even an old geezer like myself can relate to what these twentysomethings are singing, because any long term relationship is going to have those hard, uncomfortable moments where even the Thundercats, Chap Stick, and Marty McFly's DeLorean can't deliver us from our discomfort and feelings.  Thankfully, Relient K, as usual, brings it back to faith in God, and that's ultimately the greatest "escape".  

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. 

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.  

Relient K: Relient K (2000)

Tracks:

1. Hello McFly
2. My Girlfriend
3. Wake Up Call
4. Benediction
5. When You're Around
6. Softer to Me
7. Charles in Charge
8. Staples
9. Anchorage
10. 17 Magazine
11. Balloon Ride
12. Everything Will Be
13. Nancy Drew
14. K Car

I've always loved pop music.  If you've been reading this blog, you know I have an ear for that hard-to-define yet unmistakable thing called a "pop hook."  I'm not enough of a musical scholar to define what it is, but I know it when I hear it, and when I'm still humming it ten minutes later.   Good music is good music, and if it's a three-minute radio-friendly single, I'm down with it.  But I like a great gritty guitar riff, too.  I love fat bass, heavy drumming, and screaming vocals.   If it's hard and heavy and moves me--which is not easily done--I will rock out.  I may look like a fool as I'm doing it, but rocking out does happen.  

So when bands like Badfinger, Big Star, the Sweet, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers started putting pop and rock together together in the 70s, a genetic hybrid was forged that slammed its way into my heart like a sweetly-yet-firmly strummed power chord.  Thus is my long love affair with Power Pop.  I like melody, and I like loud, pounding rhythms, and with some sweet harmonies on top, I can find true bliss.  As far as Christian bands go, there have been a few bands that have moved me (All Star United, PlankEye), but if there is a true master of the genre for the 21st century, I would nominate Ohio's own Relient K.

They have all the necessary elements for great power pop: two loud, heavy guitars, big bass sound, full-throttle drumming.  Then they mix in sweet-voiced and idealistic-sounding singer in guitarist Matt Thiessen, who's also ready to play the piano if the mood demands it.  And when the band (Matt Hoopes, Brian Pittman, and Stephen Cushman) joins in three-part choirboy harmony, Magic!  An uncanny gift for writing brilliant melodies and wedding them to quirky, pop culture-friendly lyrics that speak of Jesus Christ frequently finishes the picture brilliantly.

With their self-titled debut, the K establish themselves quickly as masters of beautiful noise.  The big three hits that broke them on radio were "My Girlfriend" (As in Marilyn Manson Ate..), "Wake Up Call," and "Softer to Me."  The first is preceded on the record by Gotee Records exec Tobymac leaving a terse message for Thiessen: "A song about Marilyn Manson will never be put out on Gotee Records...ever!!"  It's for a laugh, of course, but referencing someone so antithetical to Christian values could be seen as somewhat controversial.   "Wake up Call" is driven my a rapidly-strummed acoustic and has references to Wendy's and Matchbox 20.  "Softer to Me" starts out in typical aggressively sunny fashion then breaks on the chorus into a slower, mellower tune, then ramps it up on the verses.  All three are bright, melody-driven angst confessionals that hook the listener with the melodies and power.

But there's more three-minute dramedies to be revealed.  The opening track "Hello McFly" derives its title from a harmony background vocal, but the meat of the song is the singer's wish to go back in time a la Michael J Fox and undo some emotional damage.  "Nancy Drew" references the titular mystery solver as an object of somewhat obsessive affection, and "17 Magazine" looks to the teen rag as a source of wisdom and knowledge--ironically, of course.  And perhaps the most gooey pop culture relic dragged out is their cover of the theme from "Charles in Charge," complete with spoken bits from Willie "Buddy" Aames.

With all of these cheeky name-checks and fantasies, you would think that either A) Thiessen & Co. are really a bunch of media-obsessed geeks who just happened to have figured out power chords over bowls of Cheerios on a Saturday morning, or B) they're a bunch a jaded hipsters who treat all of these odes to innocence and childhood as ironic filler for "serious" spiritual lessons nestled in sweet candy coatings.   Actually, it might be little of both.  There's nothing to indicate that the guys are jaded or hiding any dark disdain beneath their cutesy melodies and "sha-la-la" vocal chants.  There's just enough sophistication in their fun-size compositions to reveal some real understanding of great pop music.  But there's also a clear view to a world beyond TV shows, magazines, and mystery novels.  They use these references as windows for the real world of invisible and infallible truths.

Power pop can be addicting, much like sugar and caffeine.  But it usually doesn't satisfy for long.  Here's a vote that Relient K is the exception that proves the rule.  Thiessen has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to sweeten the taste of his cheerful medicine to keep us wanting another shot.