The Singles Jukebox

Fun fact, half the word count in this entry is in referring to the song title or the band’s name.

[Video]
[6.09]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Exactly the same TWIABP& we know — n+1 madlibs on the lyrics, sick riffage that slows down and gets thoughtful in the second half. Despite this lack of innovation it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t work as a massive display of sound, an exercise in both sonic muscle and political commentary that overwhelms you like a wave over Pacific shore. Most of all, it’s a song as a set of pointed questions, a series of riffs that never quite resolve. It’s a song that’s hard to fight, but it doesn’t quite reach the anthemic heights of this band’s best work.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Would you believe I got these guys mixed up with both I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness and A Sunny Day Is Glasgow, and then just before I checked out this song I went “no they’re [and immediately thought of The Pains of Being Pure At Heart instead]”? None of those bands are bad, but there’s something probably there about making your band name more memorable than the songs. That said, this prog(?) emo(??) track does have a song title even better than any of those band names, I just wish there was more to it than the usual pinched vocals and wheedly-wobbly guitar riffing, because that title deserves something genuinely impressive.
[5]

Aaron Bergstrom: I usually love quirky little “life imitating art” synchronicities, but it turns out I do not love listening to a song about eating at your desk (and subsequently suffering a stress-induced aneurysm)… while eating at my desk. 
[5]

John Pinto: “Like an ATV on fire parked indoors” and “Everyone on my block/Who speaks English is drunk” are great lines, indicative of the humor and vitality that animate and counterbalance TWIABP’s prog-iest instincts. If you play rock music in a time signature besides 4/4, you have to be able to laugh at yourself.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: It makes sense this band is making heavier music in this context, but the (lack of) song structure makes it seem really oppressive rather than more free. It’s like going into a whirlwind with no way out, especially because of the repetition of the guitar lines. which gives a claustrophobic effect. Looking at the lyrics, I understand this was maybe their aim, but I can’t seem to enjoy or connect with any of it.
[4]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: Post-by-number with a lead guitar tone that sounds like a midi, yet still it manages to find its legs in the last minute. The lyrics are on-the-nose but effective.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Superb ’90s-reminiscent post-hardcore x math-rock that has obvious feeling to it. The ache here is tangible.
[8]

Mark Sinker: There’s something likeably block-form to this composition: as in “We may be highly enigmatic but we’re not wispy. You may not get it — but we still make you drive all the way round it.” You find them nestling deep in the middle of those insane lists where like 1250 emo albs are being polled (the kind of lists you also want to drive all the way round), plus Brad Nelson long ago described a song of theirs as “mathy screamo” — a phrase I’m repeating mainly because it pleases me that so estimable a critic would so evidently trust it somehow to register (not that they’re actually screamo any more, though I guess they are still mathy). Like I say there’s the solid aspect you have to take into account, and then the other stuff, which they work very hard indeed to keep unbiddable.
[6]

Alfred Soto: This builds and crests with the assurance of 2+2 always = 4. The garrulous guitars don’t let up as if representing a spirit of vengeance. On reading the title before listening, my monocle had fallen from my left eye.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: The churning guitars are swapped out of the front of the mix for muddy, smushed singing and thudding drums, and I immediately want them back. It’s not like David Bello is such a good singer his poetry can’t be smushed against the catapulting synths and heavy, chipped guitars. He fades so quickly into the background you forget he’s there until he drops out of the mix and the song begins to float, until he slips back in and makes the whole mix sag downwards, the the song springs up, struggling with Bello’s voice but beginning to run at a speedy pace, the drums and guitar and bass all locking into this sharp edge passage — then it stops.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: A middle ground, branching forward from the naïveté of midwest emo into something that tries to hit a little more confidently. As a result, there is no awkward crack in the vocals; all this rambling poetry is delivered by narrators who no longer remember what it felt like to be eighteen. The production is lush, clear, and expensive, and the guitars no longer twinkle plaintively in the quiet parts. What’s the point of this band without angst front-and-center? What’s all this momentum pointed towards? I could only ever appreciate this overwrought, cluttered poetry if I could get that it was coming from an equally cluttered mind; now that I’m being asked to interpret it as something that was carefully and deliberately arranged it makes no sense to me.
[5]