It's fun to write music, right? Right.
It's fun to listen to music, right? Right.
It's fun to listen to the music Meneguar writes, right? Well, er, kinda...
While, as a critic, it's great to hear a band stuff so much enthusiasm into their lunchboxes, in the end it's all bologna, a plain-Jane look at rock 'n' roll. I'm loving the attitude, the energy, the ambition. I'm loving everything except for the music, which, far from subpar, is cavalier. A touch of Hot Water Music, a bloody emo wound covered with a post-punk scab; you get the idea. Not that Meneguar aren't hot on the trail of something sweeter than usual. They set their tunes aflight skillfully, ensuring that each tune embarks on a different trajectory than the last. Their lyrics are solid as anything you're likely to hear these days, their bassery mingling well with the guitar nuance.
But in the end, sometimes you have to admit that you'd only like a band if they were your friends. Meneguar have a swell, workmanlike personality, their music vibrant and cocksure, but theirs is a sound that just doesn't register very high on the memory meter. You won't have a bad experience listening to it, but there's nothing calling you back for repeated helpings. Hey, don't you think this hurts me, too!? Do you think I spend all day pondering the different ways I can hate on (your/your friends' band)? NO!! Somebody has to separate the balls from the buckwheat, and that unenviable task falls to... ME and other bad muddas on the TMT staff.
Hey, it sucks to be Meneguar the day this review runs, but it sucks to be the gumshoe-slash-pimp that has to sift through hundreds of soggy vanity projects to get to the true cream. I Was Born at Night is neither crappy nor transcendent, which is almost worse; at least I remember the REALLY bad CDs.
P.S. "Wounded Knee" is pretty rad.
1. House Of Cats
2. Kids Get Cut
3. Few Minutes In An Hour, A
4. Temp, The
5. Christmas Isn't Christmas
6. Hands Off
7. Wounded Knee
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