by Jamie Perkins, The Portsmouth Press Herald, 2.13.03
I have the
heart of a cynic. I will pay for this someday, I feel it in every seething,
humorous, sarcastic jibe. Don’t think for a second that I don’t realize this.
That having been said . . .
"Transitions," the new album from
Portland band Now Is Now, blends the songwriting and occasional bombast of ‘70s
arena rock with the songwriting and sensitive searching of modern rock, like
Boston fronted by Duncan Sheik. Or Gin Blossoms playing live, drowning out the
Queen song coming from a jukebox in a small yet unmistakably busy oxygen bar.
It’s all there: the gritty rockers, the contemplative ballads, the
soul-searching lyrics and the epic instrumental crescendos. The production is
near perfect. The songs are competent, undeniably catchy, and surely the passion
of their creators is infused in every soaring note, in every swell of solo, in
every reverb-clenched drum fill. The musicianship is best described in such
terms as tasteful, assured, capable, talented. So what then gives with the
gloomy genesis of this humble critical fable?
Well, it’s like this: the
cynic in me thinks this music is too catchy. Somewhere in the after-haze of John
Mayer getting famous, I see Dave Matthews executive producing a "Dawson’s Creek"
soundtrack compact disc with Kenny Loggins watching from the broom closet and
frankly, it scares the punk rock right out of me. It makes me want to sully a
wedding dress, baste a dove in motor oil, and cake the ashen tips of the Alps in
primordial clay. This band is certainly great at what they do - there is no
question of that. They could go far in this crazy world, and I could slump away,
the curmudgeon who conspired against them. But it isn’t like that, really ... I
just wanted to hear a blip, a wrinkle, a frost heave in the highway of this
musical road in order to maneuver its unexpected turns, to know its
imperfections. But the last song ended and I was still listening for it, my head
tired from thinking in equilateral triangles and iambic pentameter.
Jamie Perkins is a free-lance writer and the drummer for the bands
STARCH and Stone Soup. He can be reached at jamieperkins@hotmail.com.
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