Back in the 90s there were plenty of young men in rock bands who were in danger of plunging to their deaths from heights of seemingly unrealizable ambition. Like their fellow shouty post-hardcore rockers Cursive, The Paper Chase formed in the 90s but enjoyed the most successful moments of their career in the 00s. They too favored jagged song titles that pointed to endless hurt and betrayal lodged painfully in the bitter exchanges between frazzled couples on the edge of breakup. They also hung around on the edge of the mainstream in a peculiarly 90s way that suggested they still harbored ambitions to be huge. And they responded to various challenges by pushing the boundaries of their square genre into all kinds of uncomfortable looking shapes — ending up with a post-rock parallelogram that was naturally even geekier the more experimental it became.
Claustrophobia and expansive ambition are not good companions, and the late 90s/early 00s scene that produced the overwrought Mars Volta at times seemed fatally marred by a sense of frustration with the limits of rock. Perhaps it’s just me, but Fred Durst’s after image seems to ripple like a Polaroid tossed into water somewhere between the bouncy rhythms and elbows-out mic handling of Cursive, At The Drive-In et al. In hindsight, nu-metal looks increasingly less like a creation of the music industry, and more like a commercialized offshoot of a hardcore scene that subsequently disowned it. The Paper Chase’s fixation with brash verse chorus song structures and borderline hip-hop shoutiness is barely concealed by abrasive guitars and dissonance on their later albums. Young Bodies Heal Quickly, however, is an early gem. There is a focused rage to the technically proficient metal playing and tight drumming on their debut that lends urgency to instrumental rants such as “Goddamn These Hands.” The latter employs your typical scratchy under-track, featuring an insincere but nevertheless apologetic female reciting the usual breakup spiel.
The album is one of recurring themes rather than songs, as when the lyrics and piano riffs on “These Things Happen,” “Neat; Manageable; Piles,” and “When (And If) The Big One Hits… I’ll just meet you there” are cut and pasted between these tracks. “When (And If) The Big One Hits,” like “Neat; Manageable; Piles,” is atypical of the album, with its warm sound and steady rhythm. The aforementioned tracks bookend the album in a neat manner, letting what’s on the inside thrash away and work all the nasty stuff out.
Like so many of their peers, The Paper Chase seem conscious that “great” music — and indeed all “great” art — is a high wire act. Of course, because of this, and being eager young white guys, they are prone to lose their balance by a precocious handling of their own material, rather than through artistic daring that promotes something really original. The nice thing about their debut album, though, is that experimentation and urgency are present in equal measure there. No need to tear down the rock edifice just yet when there’s plenty of relationship angst to be remedied with a hearty dose of guitar virtuoso madness. And then, why not throw in a piano? That’s the right attitude, and it pays off on Young Bodies Heal Quickly.
